South Korea and the United States continue cooperation to "make progress" toward the transition of wartime operational control to Seoul, a Pentagon official said Friday, indicating that discussions on the major alliance issue are ongoing.
The official made the remarks as new South Korean President Lee Jae Myung's administration seeks to retake it at a time when US President Donald Trump's administration has been urging allies to take a greater security burden while prioritizing deterring Chinese threats.
"The U.S. and ROK continue to work together to make progress toward OPCON transition," the official told Yonhap News Agency. ROK is short for South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea.
The official added that the Pentagon has nothing to announce at this time.
Seoul and Washington have been working on the "conditions-based" OPCON transfer. Conditions include South Korea's capabilities to lead combined Korea-US forces, its strike and air defense capabilities, and a regional security environment conducive to such a handover.
During an interview with Yonhap News Agency in May last year, Elbridge Colby, currently under secretary of defense for policy, expressed his backing for the swift OPCON transition, saying the Asian ally should undertake "overwhelming" responsibility for its own defense.
Retaking OPCON from Washington was among Lee's campaign pledges.
On Wednesday, Wi Sung-lac, Lee's top security adviser, reiterated that the OPCON transition is one of Lee's pledges, while noting that past governments had also pursued the transfer.
The public has been divided over the timing of the OPCON transition. Opponents have raised concerns that the OPCON transfer could lead to a weakening of America's security commitment at a time of deepening North Korean threats, while supporters agrue the transfer would bolster efforts to enhance South Korea's independent military capabilities and greater autonomy in the security alliance.
South Korea handed over operational control of its troops to the US-led U.N. Command during the 1950-53 Korean War. Control was then transferred to the two allies' Combined Forces Command when the command was launched in 1978. Wartime operational control still remains in the U.S. hands, while South Korea retook peacetime OPCON in 1994.
The OPCON transfer was supposed to occur in 2015 but was postponed, as the allies agreed in 2014 to a conditions-based handover -- rather than a timeline-based one -- due to Pyongyang's advancing nuclear and missile threats. (Yonhap)
