The Seoul government wants to dismantle the US-South Korean combined forces command within the next six years in a major change to five decades of military alliance, a news report said yesterday.
Chosun Ilbo, the largest circulation daily in South Korea, said Seoul's campaign to regain wartime control from Washington would culminate with the 2012 disassembling of the combined forces command.
About 32,500 US soldiers are stationed here to help 650,000 South Korean military troops face up to North Korea's 1.2 million-strong army.
The US and South Korea have held talks on readjusting their traditional military alliance dating back to the 1950-1953 Korean War.
"A Joint Chiefs of Staff strategy report has clearly set 2012 as the year for dismantling the South Korean-US combined forces command," an unnamed South Korean military official told Chosun.
"Our military is being realigned according to the schedule."
South Korean troops would come under the operational control of the commander of US forces here, who leads the combined forces command, during times of conflict under a mutual defense treaty.
The US wartime operational rights have been the backbone of bilateral security ties since 1950 when US troops arrived here to repel North Korean invaders from South Korea.
But calls for South Korea's independent control of its military have increased after the US pushed ahead with the redeployment of its troops in 2004.
The US is pushing to reduce its forces here to some 25,000 by 2008 and withdrawing them from the border with North Korea to bases south of Seoul.
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