OPCON Transfer Talks to Continue Next Week
Next week the OPCON transfer talks are scheduled to continue:
Korea and the United States will hold a high-level defense meeting in Seoul next week to discuss the timing of the planned wartime operational control (OPCON) transfer, the defense ministry announced, Friday.
The Korea-U.S. Integrated Defense Dialogue (KIDD) is scheduled for Tuesday ahead of next month’s Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) in Washington, where the two nations’ defense ministers are expected to agree on the delayed handover.
The talks will be led by Ryu Je-seung, chief of the Office of Planning and Coordination at the defense ministry, and David Helvey, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia.
“They will discuss proper conditions and the timeframe for the transfer,” the defense ministry said in a statement.
With the OPCON transfer slated for December 2015, Seoul asked the U.S. in May of last year to reconsider the process, citing continuing threats from North Korea. Then Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin and U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel agreed in October that the handover should be conducted depending on conditions on the Korean Peninsula, indicating the U.S. has all but agreed to Korea’s request.
The Korean side is reportedly attempting to push back the transfer five to seven years, until somewhere between 2020 and 2022. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link.
“The Korean side is reportedly attempting to push back the transfer five to seven years, until somewhere between 2020 and 2022”
Everyone at this KIDD(Korea-U.S. Integrated Defense Dialogue) should have to wear special attire. For the S. Koreans(including Kim Kwan-jin and Ryu Je-seung) bibs, diapers, and pacifiers. For the Americans(including Chuck Hagel and David Helvey), dunce caps.