Korea, U.S. to Conclude Talks on Yongsan Base Transfer

Korea and the U.S. will conclude discussions on moving the Yongsan U.S. military base in Seoul to south of the Han River during the tenth Future of the Alliance (FOTA) talks in Washington D.C. on July 22 and 23.

Regarding the size of the transfer site, a major point of contention in the talks, Korea is considering providing 200,000 pyong more than its original offer of 3.3 million pyong, whereas, the U.S. is of the opinion that “the land for the base must be at least 3.6 million pyong when taking the standards of other overseas U.S. military base transfers and favorable deployment conditions into consideration.”

Other pending issues include transfer costs and the parties responsible for the costs, the inclusion of transfer costs for C4I, a system to block North Korea’s firepower attacks in the Umbrella Agreement (UA), which needs the approval of Korea’s National Assembly, and the transfer date for the Yongsan base.

Regarding the transfer date, Korea is calling for the transfer to be postponed from its original date of late 2007 to post-2008. However, the U.S. is asserting that the original date be met, considering its schedule for the relocation of U.S. troops abroad and its overall shake-up of the USFK bases.

Meanwhile, Korea will reportedly request that the U.S. postpone the USFK reduction, set to take place at the end of 2005, to the original date the U.S. was considering, the end of 2006 or later.

Korean Defense Ministry’s Policy Bureau Chief Ahn Kwang-chan and U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asia-Pacific Affairs Richard Lawless each lead their respective delegations at the talks

Ho-Won Choi bestiger@donga.com