The U.S. may be forced to relocate its air force assets in South Korea unless modern strafing and bombing ranges are provided for them within 30 days, a U.S. Air Force commander said.
The warning by Lt. Gen. Garry R. Trexler, deputy head of the U.S. Forces Korea, appeared to be one of the strongest U.S. complaints yet about the lack of a modern training range for U.S. pilots based in South Korea.
"I think we are very close in coming to closure on this issue but if it's not done within the next 30 days, we'll be forced to send aircraft which are critical to the deterrence of this peninsula off this peninsula," Trexler told a forum on Friday.
The U.S. stations scores of modern fighter jets in South Korea as part of its 30,000-member military, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War. South Korea is responsible for providing proper training facilities for them.
"If a nation has a military, that nation has a sacred obligation to ensure that they provide adequate training areas for that military training. That is true for the Republic of Korea military," said Trexler, who heads the 7th U.S. Air Force headquartered in Osan south of Seoul.
Trexler's statement was seen as additional pressure on South Korea ahead of an annual meeting of the two countries' defense chiefs in Washington on Oct. 27-28. South Korea has said it will try to resolve the issue before the meeting.
The U.S. has complained that its air force pilots in South Korea had to go abroad to conduct air-to-ground firing exercises, since it was forced to shut down its main firing range south of Seoul in August last year.
South Korea has promised to upgrade a firing range on Jikdo, a remote islet off the southwest coast, for use by the U.S. air force, but the plan has yet to be realized due to mounting protests by local villagers.
Currently, South Korean and U.S. pilots use the Jikdo range at the ratio of 8:2, but the U.S. side wants more time. Also at the center of the dispute is a U.S. demand the range should have a modern automatic scoring system, called the weapons impact scoring set (WISS).
In recent years, South Korea's half-century alliance with the U.S., forged in blood during the 1950-53 Korean War, faced a fundamental change, as the U.S. is pushing to drastically realign its forces overseas. The alliance also showed cracks in other issues such as how to deal with a nuclear-armed North Korea.
The U.S. plans to reduce its troops level in South Korea to 25,000 by 2008 and give back its full operational control of South Korean troops to the host nation. The plans stoked security jitters in South Korea, but the U.S. has repeatedly said its security commitment on the peninsula will remain unchanged.
Seoul, Sept. 23 (Yonhap News)
U.S. warns of air force pull out, citing poor firing range facilities |
