By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter


South Korea plans to recover wartime operational control of its military from the United States in 10 years, as part of efforts to build a ``cooperative self-reliant’’ capability, a top security official said Friday.

Explaining the nation’s 15-year military reform plan, senior officials at the Defense Ministry presented the timetable to their U.S. counterparts led by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld who visited Seoul for an annual security consultation meeting last week, the official said.

In a joint communique issued at the end of the 37th Security Consultation Meeting (SCM) in Seoul on Oct. 21, Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung and Rumsfeld agreed to ``appropriately accelerate’’ talks on the issue of transferring wartime command but failed to say how soon Seoul would be granted operational control of its armed forces.

South Korea took back control of its military during peacetime in 1994, but wartime control has remained in U.S. hands since the 1950-53 Korean War which ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

``President Roh Moo-hyun is well aware that this issue cannot be resolved hastily. What Roh wants to do is to lay the groundwork for the issue for the next governments to process,’’ he said, requesting anonymity. ``But the time, I believe, will come at least before 2015.’’

The official said progress in the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program is a key factor to speeding up the talks on reclaiming operation control from the U.S.

``The success of the six-party talks is directly linked to the transformation of the current armistice into a peace treaty,’’ he said, citing the joint agreement of the latest talks in Beijing in September. The agreement stipulates that the two Koreas and other parties concerned with the Korean War could discuss a permanent peace framework for the Korean Peninsula.

A ceasefire has been in effect with a truce agreement on the peninsula since July 27, 1953, leaving the South and North technically at war.

``After a peace treaty is established, the two Koreas will have to control their troops on their own. This means South Korea should have operational control of its military.’’

However, the official made it clear that a possible peace treaty is not related to the withdrawal of U.S. troops in South Korea as demanded by North Korea.

The North has claimed that the United States Forces Korea (USFK) is a major stumbling bloc to the peace talks between the two Koreas, calling for the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from the peninsula.

With the improvement of the country’s military capability, it is natural that South Korea assumes more responsibility for its security, and the process has, in fact, been underway, he said.

Last month, South Korea and the U.S. signed an agreement to transfer six military missions, including the command and control of counter-fire operations against the North from the USFK to the South Korean military.

The U.S. now maintains about 30,000 troops in South Korea as deterrence against communist North Korea. The number of troops is scheduled to be slashed to 25,000 by 2008 under Washington’s plan to realign its overseas forces.

gallantjung@koreatimes.co.kr