The U.S. military on Wednesday accepted South Korea's request for a concrete pledge to provide a nuclear umbrella in case of an attack from North Korea, a senior South Korean military official said.
"The U.S. military agreed on a concrete guarantee of a nuclear umbrella provision," said Rear Adm. Ahn Ki-seok, chief of the strategic planning department at the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
"It will be deeply discussed during the upcoming meeting of South Korean and U.S. defense ministers and then included in a joint statement."
The agreement was made at a meeting of top military officers of South Korea and the United States. Gen. Lee Sang-hee, chairman of the JCS, and his U.S. counterpart, Gen. Peter Pace, agreed on the need to give a "strong signal" to North Korea at a time when tension is rising over its nuclear weapon test, Ahn told reporters.
Ahn said Gen. Burwell B. Bell, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea, who was also present at the annual Military Committee Meeting (MCM), will work out how to provide a nuclear umbrella for South Korea as head of the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC). But Ahn declined to provide further details.
The U.S. has emphasized its promise of the nuclear umbrella at every annual meeting of the defense ministers since 1978, but South Korea is seeking to secure a concrete U.S. commitment in the form of a statement following the North's nuclear test.
But South Korea and the U.S. will not make a list of tactical nuclear weapons to be provided for the South in case of a war because it will invite stiff resistance from China, Russia, Japan and Taiwan, according to military officials and analysts.
"The nuclear umbrella cannot be said to include or use what kind of nuclear weapon. The two sides will continue to discuss how to develop the concept of the guarantee," Ahn said.
Ahn, however, neither confirmed nor denied that they discussed how to improve or revise a joint war scenario to prepare for a possible nuclear attack from North Korea.
In a scenario called OPLAN 5027, drawn up in 2002, the two sides would seek to remove the regime of the North's leader, Kim Jong-il, and defeat his 1.17-million-member military in the event North Korea invades the South, but analysts say it lacks specific action plans to cope with a nuclear war. A revised war plan would specify how U.S. tactical nuclear weapons will be deployed on the Korean Peninsula in accordance with the level of North Korea's nuclear threat, according to sources. The types of weapon systems on offer would probably include Tomahawk missiles, AGM cruise missiles, BGM-109 guided missiles, stealth fighters and submarines.
In 1991, the U.S. withdrew hundreds of tactical nuclear weapons from South Korea following an inter-Korean agreement to denuclearize the peninsula amid global detente and arms reduction moves.
Lee and Pace spent half of the four-hour meeting discussing ways to tackle North Korea's nuclear weapon test amid mounting concern about yet another possible test, Ahn said, noting that the U.S. provided intelligence on North Korea's move to conduct a second nuclear test. He refused to reveal the information.
They also finalized a proposed change to the command structure of the CFC. The outcome will be reported to the Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) talks of the defense ministers scheduled for Friday.
In a proposed command structure change, the CFC will be dismantled and the two sides will run separate commands on the peninsula when South Korea takes over wartime operational control from the U.S. South Korea's JCS will take charge of the country's armed forces during times of peace and war.
In place of the CFC, South Korea and the U.S. will establish a joint body for military operations, a tentative step toward a proposed joint defense system, South Korean officials said.
The CFC, created in November 1978, took over wartime control rights from the American-led United Nations Command (UNC). The two commands are both under the control of the top U.S. commander in South Korea, a four-star general, currently Bell.
In 1994, South Korea regained peacetime control of its forces, but wartime control remains in the hands of the senior U.S. commander in South Korea.
The body that will replace the CFC, tentatively called the Military Cooperation Center, will likely come under the joint control of three-star generals from Seoul and Washington and consist of some 10 standing and non-standing organizations, according to them.
The U.S. and South Korean commanders will jointly run the body, and the overall control and command of the cooperative system will lie in the hands of South Korea's chairman of the JCS.
In the envisaged joint defense system, South Korea's JCS will act as theater command on the Korean Peninsula and take the initiative in military operations, while the U.S. Forces Korea will shift to a supporting role.
The joint body will be designed to coordinate joint military operations and give orders on cooperation during times of peace and war, and it will be designed to be stronger than the U.S.-Japan alliance model, they added.
However, the U.S.-led UNC will be maintained on the Korean Peninsula despite the planned dismantlement of the CFC, according to the officials. Seoul and Washington are to create two separate commands before establishing a joint defense system.
During the MCM, the 28th since 1978, Lee also explained why South Korea should have to take over wartime control by 2012, not 2009 as proposed by the U.S., Ahn said. They failed to agree on a target year, but Ahn stressed that the defense ministers will discuss the issue again during their upcoming talks.
South Korea and the U.S. had planned to unveil the transfer timeline at the end of the SCM talks, but many analysts said it will be difficult to agree on a target year due to a wide difference in their positions.
About 30,000 U.S. troops are now stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the Korean War. The U.S. plans to cut the number of its troops to 25,000 by 2008.
The two Koreas are still technically in a state of war, since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
Washington, Oct. 18 (Yonhap News)
U.S. agrees on concrete nuclear umbrella for S. Korea |
