U.S. has been reluctant to hand over technology
South Korea’s Defense Ministry will seek the purchase of unmanned surveillance aircraft, or drones, from the United States during the Security Policy Initiative (SPI) meeting to be held later this month in Washington. The United States has previously rejected South Korea’s demands to purchase the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) Global Hawk due to concerns over technology leaks. "Rather than taking the issue as an official agenda item for negotiation, we will put in our request with Washington, emphasizing our need to have such aircraft," a military official said. The move will be the latest attempt by Seoul to buy the state-of-the-art surveillance aircraft following unsuccessful requests last year and a letter sent last month to the U.S. military. The U.S. military made no response to the letter, sources said.The US$45-million Global Hawk is a pilotless surveillance plane that can fly at an altitude of 20 kilometers for 38-42 hours, providing high-resolution imagery of objects on the ground as small as 0.3 meters in diameter.
