Military to send on-site team to Afghanistan

The military plans to send a due diligence team to Afghanistan to determine the size of troops to be dispatched as part of a mission for participating in international efforts to rebuild and stabilize the region.

The delegation would survey the area in attempts to decide the number of troops to send and also the equipment and weapons they would carry, Defense Ministry officials said.

"Exactly when the due diligence would be dispatched has yet to be decided," said Won Tae-jae, the Defense Ministry spokesman.

A separate inter-agency team of government officials led by Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Yong-joon earlier returned from a weeklong due diligence.



Following the visit, Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said he expects Seoul to build a base camp for the troops and civilian workers in either Parwan or Bamyan provinces.

The two are cited as being relatively more secure compared to others, particularly because they are in the vicinity of the U.S. Bagram Air Base.

The Foreign Ministry announced last month that it would send in around 130 more civilians to help rebuild Afghanistan as part of the Provincial Reconstruction Team. It also said troops of around 300 would be dispatched alongside to protect the civilian aid workers.

To house the increase in the number of Koreans, Seoul said it would construct an independent base camp. So far the civilians had been under U.S. protection.

The government, however, needs to first receive acceptance from NATO to participate as a part of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. Afterwards it must receive an approval from the National Assembly to send troops.

Officials said they hope to request approval early next year.

Political parties, however, appeared to be at odds.

On Wednesday, the main opposition Democratic Party said it was moving towards opposing the dispatch, citing security concerns.

Ruling Grand National Party lawmakers said the DP was objecting for the sake of objection.

"The DP is making a political decision," said GNP policy committee chief Kim Seong-jo.

He reminded the DP that it was a government is supported-the previous Roh Moo-hyun administration-that sent troops to Afghanistan in the past.

Those forces were pulled out in 2007 after the Taliban made a request. The Taliban had taken a group of Korean missionaries as hostage and killed two of them.

The DP, however, refuted that the government was deceiving the public because the troops would be virtually combat troops, and that the lives of Koreans were at stake.

The Foreign Ministry maintained that the troops would in no case engage in combat, unless it was for self-protection and for defending the civilian workers.

A survey The Korea Herald recently conducted on lawmakers of the National Assembly`s foreign affairs and defense committees showed that the majority supported the latest dispatch decision.

(jemmie@heraldm.com)







By Kim Ji-hyun