By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter

South Korea is stepping up preparations for the additional troop dispatch to Iraq with the hope that it will be given Assembly approval by early next month at the latest, a Seoul official visiting the Middle Eastern country said on Sunday. Kim Hee-sang, presidential adviser for national defense, said the government’s plan to send some 3,000 soldiers to Iraq will go ahead as intended as the National Assembly is certain to approve it, asserting it will be in national interest. ``It is a dangerous idea that it would be all right for us not to send the troops. An additional troop dispatch is inevitable,’’ Kim told Yonhap News Agency, ending his five-day visit to the war-torn country. ``The country would be seriously affected not only politically but also economically if it couldn’t send the additional troops,’’ he said, adding the government would do everything legally permitted even before the legislative action. The Seoul government last month finalized its plan to deploy an additional 3,000-strong contingent, including some 1,500 combat troops, to the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk as early as April. It has already sent some 700 medics and engineers to the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, and half of them are still stationed there. However, the dispatch plan was met with fierce public criticism and has put lawmakers and their parties in a bind ahead of the April 15 general elections. The main opposition Grand National Party, which controls the unicameral legislature with majority power, is widely believed to support the plan as the conservative party values highly the country’s alliance with the United States. But, rival political parties and many individual lawmakers, worried about the possible backlash in the upcoming polls, have so far been reluctant to lend open support to the plan. Uri Party member Rep. Chang Young-dal, who chairs the Assembly’s National Defense Committee, said on Sunday he discouraged hastening the plan. Other officials have even suggested the troop dispatch motion be passed onto the next Assembly to be formed in May after the April elections.

jinryu@koreatimes.co.kr