New UN command plan needed for NKorea issue

Seoul, Jan 18: The UN command that has maintained an armistice since the end of the Korean War more than 50 years ago must be restructured following a US-South Korea military deal, the head of US Forces Korea said today.

Washington and Seoul have agreed to transfer sometime in the next few years wartime command control of South Korean troops to Seoul, which will have a knock-on effect on other command structures formed as a part of the 1950-1953 Korean War.

Shaking up the structure of US and South Korean combined forces would raise further questions over command and what role the nations in the UN command would take.

''The UNC commander will no longer have immediate access to ROK (South Korea) combat troops which are postured along the DMZ and elsewhere, as he has had under the combined forces command,'' Bell said.

''Unless addressed, this situation will make it impossible to credibly maintain the armistice,'' Bell added.

The US has about 30,000 troops in South Korea to support that country's 670,000-strong military. North Korea positions most of its 1.2 million-man army near the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) that divides the peninsula.

REUTERS

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