The United States and South Korea agreed Thursday to delay the handover of wartime control of Korean troops, scrapping a schedule to have it accomplished by the end of 2015.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and visiting South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo made the announcement at the Pentagon.
Though South Korea controls its own forces in peacetime, they would come under U.S. command in wartime. With a nuclear-armed North Korea becoming increasingly unpredictable under the rule of Kim Jong-un, the South Korean government has sought to maintain the arrangement for as long as possible.
“North Korea is continuing to launch new types of provocations. … As such, the security situation on the Korean peninsula is more precarious than ever,” Han told reporters, speaking in Korean through a translator.
The new deal would set conditions that, when met, would allow South Korea to take wartime control of its own troops. Hagel said there would be no set timeline for this to be achieved, but Han said Seoul was looking at a target date of the middle of 2020.
About 28,500 U.S. troops are in South Korea, augmenting that country’s 640,000-strong military.
The two Koreas remain technically at war, separated by a 2.5-mile-wide demilitarized zone set up by the 1953 truce that ended active hostilities.Tensions on the peninsula have grown since last month when Kim, 32, went absent for 40 days, sparking rumors that he had become incapacitated by illness or injury, or had been ousted in a coup.
Han said “on the surface it seems that Kim Jong-un is effectively exercising control” in North Korea, but noted that he expects instability there to increase.
