Korea, “the Best Result,” the U.S., “Earlier than the Draft”

Korean and U.S. officials attending the 10th meeting of the Future of the ROK-U.S. Alliance (FOTA) Policy Initiative explained the movement of Young-san base and spoke about an amended Land Partnership Program (LPP) at a joint press conference Friday.

Department of Defense policy bureau chief Ahn Kwang-chan, Kim Suk of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Asia Pacific Affairs Richard Lawless attended the meeting.

--What’s the reason behind the calculation of 3.49 million pyŏng for an alternative site selection instead of moving the Young-san base?

(Kim) “Originally, the U.S. asked for 5.46 million pyŏng. We came to an agreement after negotiations concerning whether the U.S. request reflected its scheme of reducing its army in Korea, and if so, whether it was appropriate or not. As a result of analyzing the U.S. plan for moving its facilities, the 3.6 million pyŏng they had asked for in the negotiation was an amount less than what we had calculated by ourselves. Still, we gained 110,000 pyŏng even from there.”

After the negotiation report was released, Korean civic groups and the opposition party objected, claiming that it kept the framework of an unfair agreement made back in 1990.

--Do you have any plan to renegotiate if the proposal fails to be ratified in the National Assembly?

(Ahn) “We’ll fully inform Koreans that this agreement was the best result we could have possibly attained. It is improbable to renegotiate because we could have gained such a result in the long term.”

(Lawless) “The mode of this agreement was the LPP ratified by the National Assembly through transparent means two or three years ago. Koreans will be satisfied if every detailed document is submitted to the National Assembly.”

--What’s the difference between this UA and the former agreement?

(Kim) “There are many legal flaws because the 1990 agreement was the one between organizations. But this UA is going to be ratified openly in the form of a pact. In particular, poisonous provisions like the right of claim and compensation for business losses have disappeared, a provision about the environment was newly made, and the procedure for examining joint costs aiming for minimizing and clarifying shares of cost was also made.”

--Isn’t the fact that Korea is being asked to supply the entire cost of the move regarding the U.S. plan of rearrangement a problem?

(Kim) “It is an international custom for those who ask for base movement first to pay the cost. There are precedents set by Japan and Germany in which they paid all the moving costs when they asked for base movements first.”

--You said the two nations conceded to each other. What were the concessions in detail?

(Lawless) “We considered that the return of our base would also be an expensive proposition too, not only the one Korea offered while negotiating the amended LPP negotiation concerning the Yong-san base. In addition, we decided to return more bases than the original LPP agreement stipulated earlier.”

Soon-Taek Kwon maypole@donga.com