U.S. bid to limit no. of missile test-firing raises criticism

Although Korea and the United States are on the threshold of signing an accord on Seoul`s missile development program, criticism has been raised over the U.S. requests for limiting the number of Korea`s test-firings of missiles with a range of up to 300 kilometers.

According to a diplomatic source Thursday, the U.S. side proposed in negotiations held in Washington on Oct. 16 that Korea should limit the number of the test firings of the missiles with a range of up to 300 km to five times and the missiles with over 500-km ranges to five times, while additional launches should be conducted jointly with the United States.

But the Korean side counter-proposed that Korea`s unilateral test firing should be up to 15 times at least. The two sides eventually agreed to 10 times in a compromise.

Experts said that 10 test launches would be almost sufficient for the complete development of the proposed missiles. However, they argued that it is not proper for the United States to intervene in Korea`s development of the missile with a range of 300 km in favor of its missile non-proliferation policy, despite the fact that the development of the 300-km missiles is permitted under the Missile Technology Control Regime.

If the Korea-U.S. missile negotiations are concluded, Korea will be able to develop and deploy the missiles with a range of up to 300 km, conduct research for the development of missiles with the range of up to 500 km.