South Korea and the United States will hold the 38th Security Consultative Meeting (SCM), an annual meeting of defense ministers, in October in Washington D.C. At the SCM, the two countries are expected to announce a blueprint for the future partnership containing discussion of the long-term presence of United States Forces Korea (USFK) on the Korean peninsula.
According to Kim Kyu-hyon, an official of the Ministry of National Defense, on July 26, “Joint study on the blueprint for the South Korea-U.S. partnership to be presented at the upcoming SCM is almost completed. It contains contents on the USFK’s continuous presence on the peninsula.”
Kim continued by saying that Seoul and Washington “stated clearly that the mid- or long-term presence of the USFK and securing an environment for its presence” as some of the blueprint’s purposes. “This means that the two allies are going to cooperate for regional peace and stability through firmly maintaining the South Korea-U.S. partnership even after the reunification of the Korean peninsula,” he added.
However, at the Security Policy Initiative (SPI) meeting on July 13-14, the two countries discussed only two stages of the military partnership, one being reconciliation and cooperation and the other peaceful co-existence, with no discussion of reunification.
Blueprint calls for continued presence, no plans for reunification |
