 Gen. Walter Sharp, outgoing commander of the U.S. Forces in Korea, speaks at a breakfast meeting held at the Koreana Hotel in central Seoul, Monday. / Yonhap |
Gen. Walter Sharp, outgoing commander of the U.S. Forces in Korea (USFK), reaffirmed Monday Washington’s opposition to the redeployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons here.
“I don’t believe tactical nuclear weapons need to return to the Republic of Korea,” he told a forum in Seoul, referring to South Korea by its official name.
In March this year, Robert Einhorn, the U.S. State Department’s special advisor for non-proliferation and arms control, and James Miller, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, ruled out the possibility of redeploying tactical nuclear weapons to the South.
Gen. Sharp underlined that U.S. President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have reiterated Washington’s commitment to the nuclear umbrella to Seoul.
“What the U.S. has guaranteed through extended deterrence, which includes the nuclear umbrella, has sufficient capabilities from stock we have in different places around the world,” Gen. Sharp said.
“They don’t have to be stationed here in Korea for either deterrent capability or use capability,” he said.
Some 300,000 U.S. military forces are deployed in more than 100 countries, including South Korea with 28,500 and Japan with 47,000. Another 47,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq and about 100,000 in Afghanistan.
The U.S. has not disclosed the number of its tactical nuclear weapons overseas, but is believed to have deployed them in Belgium, Italy, Turkey, Germany and the Netherlands.
The U.S. pulled all of its nuclear weapons out of South Korea in 1991 after Seoul and Pyongyang signed an agreement calling for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Washington since then has committed to providing so-called “extended deterrence,” using all of the U.S. military might, including ballistic nuclear missiles, in defense of the South.
The top U.S. commander stressed that Seoul and Washington are prepared to respond to Pyongyang’s further armed attacks.
“While the Kim (Jong-il) regime has proven a willingness to escalate in order to obtain what it wants, I am convinced that the ROK-U.S. alliance is prepared,” he said.
“Our counter-provocation planning and combined exercises are stronger than ever.”
Several South Korean politicians, including former ruling Grand National Party Chairman Chung Mong-joon, have been vocal about the need to redeploy U.S. tactical weapons after North Korea torpedoed the South Korean warship Cheonan and shelled the border island of Yeonpyeong last year.
Meanwhile, Sharp claimed that Pyongyang’s belligerent behavior stems from “their desire to antagonize, provoke, appease and demand concessions” in order to achieve “the regime’s goals of gaining food, fuel, economic aid and succession to sustain their regime.”
“North Korea’s unprovoked submarine attack on the Cheonan, the announcement of their highly enriched uranium program and the brutal artillery barrage on Yeonpyeong Island over the past year were part of the North’s spiraling threat of coercive strategy,” he said.
He expressed his support for Seoul’s push for military reforms, saying this was an “essential” step to making its armed forces stronger.
“It will absolutely enhance your war-fighting capability through a more efficient joint structure,” Sharp said. “This is essential not only for increased command and control capability, but also for fiscal prudence.”
Gen. Sharp is set to retire in September after completing his posting in Korea on July 14.
Gen. James Thurman, chief of the U.S. Army Forces Command, will become the new USFK commander.
