South Korea's defense ministry intends to revive a joint US-South Korean contingency plan to cope with unrest in North Korea after president-elect Lee Myung-bak takes office, a report said yesterday.
The Dong-A Ilbo newspaper, quoting military sources, said the ministry reported last month to Lee's transition team that the joint contingency plan was scheduled to be formulated by the end of this year.
It would likely revive a military operational plan codenamed OPLAN 5029 which was shelved by President Roh Moo-hyun, Dong-A said.
OPLAN 5029 contains military strategies to handle political turmoil and a sudden exodus of refugees, natural disasters that include floods and earthquakes, or the regime's loss of control over nuclear and biochemical weapons.
North Korea reacted angrily to OPLAN 5029, describing it as a preparation for war, and Roh's government stopped discussion of the plan in January 2005, citing a possible breach of national sovereignty.
But it has been preparing a watered-down scheme, CONPLAN 5029, which does not include detailed military operation plans.
Lee, who will be sworn in on Feb. 25, has stressed the need to strengthen the US-South Korean alliance.
The defense ministry refused to comment on the newspaper report.
Experts cited in the newspaper article point out that Seoul is set to regain wartime operational command over its own military forces by 2012.
They said Seoul needs its own military plan to take the lead in transporting North Koreans to safe areas in case of any massive fight, and to offer humanitarian aid to the North in case of natural disasters.
Some 28,000 US troops are stationed in the South to help 650,000 South Korean forces face the North Korean army, which Pyongyang says has 1.2 million members.
Under a mutual defense treaty, the South Korean military comes under US command in times of war. But this is set to change by 2012.
HISTORIC: After the arrest of Kim Keon-hee on financial and political funding charges, the country has for the first time a former president and former first lady behind bars South Korean prosecutors yesterday raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges. Former first lady Kim Keon-hee was arrested late on Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said. Her arrest came hours after the Seoul Central District Court reviewed prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old. The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out
STAGNATION: Once a bastion of leftist politics, the Aymara stronghold of El Alto is showing signs of shifting right ahead of the presidential election A giant cruise ship dominates the skyline in the city of El Alto in landlocked Bolivia, a symbol of the transformation of an indigenous bastion keenly fought over in tomorrow’s presidential election. The “Titanic,” as the tallest building in the city is known, serves as the latest in a collection of uber-flamboyant neo-Andean “cholets” — a mix of chalet and “chola” or Indigenous woman — built by Bolivia’s Aymara bourgeoisie over the past two decades. Victor Choque Flores, a self-made 46-year-old businessman, forked out millions of US dollars for his “ship in a sea of bricks,” as he calls his futuristic 12-story
FORUM: The Solomon Islands’ move to bar Taiwan, the US and others from the Pacific Islands Forum has sparked criticism that Beijing’s influence was behind the decision Tuvaluan Prime Minister Feletei Teo said his country might pull out of the region’s top political meeting next month, after host nation Solomon Islands moved to block all external partners — including China, the US and Taiwan — from attending. The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders’ meeting is to be held in Honiara in September. On Thursday last week, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele told parliament that no dialogue partners would be invited to the annual gathering. Countries outside the Pacific, known as “dialogue partners,” have attended the forum since 1989, to work with Pacific leaders and contribute to discussions around
END OF AN ERA: The vote brings the curtain down on 20 years of socialist rule, which began in 2005 when Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer, was elected president A center-right senator and a right-wing former president are to advance to a run-off for Bolivia’s presidency after the first round of elections on Sunday, marking the end of two decades of leftist rule, preliminary official results showed. Bolivian Senator Rodrigo Paz was the surprise front-runner, with 32.15 percent of the vote cast in an election dominated by a deep economic crisis, results published by the electoral commission showed. He was followed by former Bolivian president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in second with 26.87 percent, according to results based on 92 percent of votes cast. Millionaire businessman Samuel Doria Medina, who had been tipped
RSS