WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. and South Korean defence chiefs agreed on Thursday that for the foreseeable future the United States will take overall command of their combined forces in case of a war, reversing an earlier plan to shift the responsibility to Seoul next year.
The new arrangement, requested by South Korea, delayed transition to South Korean command leadership until Seoul has better military capabilities to counter the kinds of nuclear weapons and missile threats posed by North Korea.
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-Koo signed the accord at the Pentagon on Thursday, a year after they agreed to review the December 2015 timing of the transfer.
The memorandum of understanding, finalised as U.S. and Korean officials gathered in Washington for the 46th annual Security Consultative Meeting, “outlines a conditions-based process for transferring war-time operational control of our allied forces,” Hagel told a joint news conference.
The 1950-53 Korean war ended in an armistice agreement and the peninsula remains divided.
“While this agreement will delay the scheduled transfer of operational control, it will ensure that when the transfer does occur, Korean forces have the necessary defensive capabilities to address an intensifying North Korean threat,” Hagel said.
The agreement makes transfer of overall war-time command responsibility contingent on Seoul improving its intelligence, command and control and other systems to better cope with North Korea’s threats, officials said.
Han, speaking through an interpreter, told the news conference “the security situation on the Korean peninsula is more precarious than ever,” with the North expanding its nuclear capabilities and launching new provocations such as infiltration using small aerial drones.
Hagel called North Korea’s “destabilising policies and dangerous provocations” a threat in northeast Asia and around the world. “North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs require our alliance to maintain robust and credible deterrence,” Hagel said.
North Korea conducted its third nuclear test in February 2013, two months after successfully launching a long-range rocket that put an object, which Pyongyang said was a satellite, into space.
The rocket launch was widely seen as a test of its long-range missile capabilities, despite North Korea’s insistence that it was part of a peaceful space project.
The 31-year-old North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, disappeared from public view for a long period in late September and early October, fuelling speculations about his health and grip on power. He reportedly visited a science academy in mid-October.
Asked whether Kim was still in control in the North, the South Korean defence minister Han said, “On the surface it seems that Kim Jong-un is effectively exercising control.”
“However,” Han added, North Korea’s “diplomatic isolation and chronic economic crisis will in the long term increase instability” and “different threats can arise from the instability.”
(Reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Grant McCool)
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