U.S. Say O.K. to the Improvement of the SOFA but No to the Revision

The Korean government reached an agreement with the U.S. government to improve some parts of the Status of Forces Agreements (SOFA) governing the legal status of 37,000 U.S. troops in Korea. According to the agreement, representatives from the U.S. will stand by for 24 hours to ensure a Korean investigative team to engage in a swift probe at the early stage in case of criminal cases involving American soldiers. And also, the U.S. side should promptly make any accused soldiers available to Korean authorities within one hour after an indictment is issued.

The move came after some critics had made a point that because the current agreement states the testimony made by the accused will be validated only when American legal representatives attend, the attendance delay of American representatives blocks an effective implementation of the SOFA.

In addition, the government is seeking a way to allow Korean investigative teams to ask the U.S. to transfer the accused solider to them if necessary, even after the accused is under U.S. custody.

The government is planning to convene a meeting of the Korea-U.S. SOFA joint committee this month and call for the U.S. to include provisions, which Korean government wants to revise, into the legally binding bilateral “Agreed View”.

On December 4, the Korean government held relevant ministers’ meeting dealing with the rising anti-American sentiment in Korea. The meeting was presided over by Prime Minister Kim Suk-Soo at the central government building in downtown, Seoul. In the meeting, they came up with the improvement proposals and launch a task-force team of directors from 13 relevant government branches to deal with the improvement of the SOFA.

The government will also try to reflect its opinions through various consultative channels to the process in which only the U.S. is allowed to determine whether a case involving American soldiers occurs while on duty or not.

The government decided to discuss safety measures regarding U.S. military trainings such as an advance notification of all military trainings here in order to prevent the reoccurrence of the incident in which Korean teenage girls were killed by an American armored vehicle in Kuyngki province.

On 3rd, an American official at the State Department said with respect to the revision of the SOFA in his telephone interview with a Korean press, “The U.S. government is concerning about the anti-American sentiment that is recently rising and it will closely watch the situation in Korea.” However, the official clearly said that technically the implementation of the SOFA can be improved to some extent but it is difficult to revise the SOFA under the current circumstance.

Furthermore, when asked if there is any possibility of U.S. president George W. Bush offering a direct apology for the deaths of the Korean girls through a public statement, he responded that it is practically impossible because the U.S. government has done everything it can with respect to the incident.

Dong-Ki Sung esprit@donga.com