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Under a security deal, Roh has agreed to take back wartime operational control of South Korean troops from the U.S. military in April 2012. Roh has also agreed to disband the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, which will allow Seoul and Washington to run separate military commands.
Roh, who was elected five years ago on the back of a strong wave of anti-American sentiment, has pushed to reduce the role of U.S. troops in South Korea as part of efforts to bolster the country's self-defense capability, despite concerns that it would weaken the decades-long security alliance which has effectively deterred another invasion from North Korea.
But Lee Myung-bak, who won a landslide victory over liberal candidates in last month's presidential election, plans to call for the United States to delay the planned transfer of wartime control, citing lingering threats from the North.
"The matter of wartime control transfer must be carefully reviewed with the U.S. side, by taking a general look into the security situation of the Korean peninsula and our defense capability as well as North Korea's nuclear problem," said an official at the president-elect's transition team. "The issue of returning wartime control needs a prudent review," he said.
During election campaigns, Lee pledged to renegotiate the date of the transfer, saying 2012 is too early. His aide said the transfer should come only after the North's nuclear standoff is fully resolved.
Lee will send powerful lawmaker and business tycoon Chung Mong-joon as a special envoy to Washington next week to deliver Lee's personal letter to President George W. Bush and discuss boosting the security alliance before Lee's inauguration on Feb. 25.
Lee's transition team cited North Korea's nuclear weapons drive and a lack of military confidence between the two Koreas as a factor behind the move toward reviewing the security deal with the United States.
"Despite the progress in inter-Korean economic cooperation for the past five years, there have been no substantial measures to reduce military tensions across the border," the transition team said, stressing the 2012 transfer of wartime control is premature.
South Korea voluntarily put the operational control of its military under the U.S.-led UN Command shortly after the Korean War broke out in 1950. It took back the peacetime operational control in 1994, but wartime operational control remains in the hands of the top U.S. commander here. Currently, the four-star U.S. commander has the authority to command both South Korean and American troops in case of an emergency.
Fueling security jitters, the United States has already planned to redeploy the frontline U.S. ground forces to south of Seoul, in one of the biggest realignments of U.S. forces in this country since the 1950-53 Korean War.
The United States has recently reduced its troops in South Korea to some 28,000 from 37,000, and the number is to be downsized again to 25,000 by 2008 as part of Washington's global troop realignment plan.
Largely backed by U.S. troops, the South's 670,000 troops are facing off against the North's 1.2-million-strong armed forces. The two Koreas remain technically in a state of war as the Korean War ended without a peace treaty. Their border is the world's last Cold War flashpoint with nearly 2 million troops on both sides.
Lee's push to review the military deal could pose a first diplomatic challenge as the United States has already ruled out the possibility of a renegotiation.
U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Alexander Vershbow said he was opposed to a rescheduling of the plan, saying South Korea has enough time to prepare for the transfer. "As I said, the strategic transition plan was already agreed upon and it is being implemented," he told a recent security forum in Seoul.
Baek Seung-joo, senior analyst at the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analysis, considered the U.S. envoy's remarks as Washington's clear message to South Korea's next government that the wartime control transfer should be implemented as planned.
A South Korean defense official also expressed a negative view, saying the transfer of wartime operational command is "what was agreed between the heads of the two states and also between their defense ministers." But a defense source said Washington could postpone the planned transition of wartime operational control by two to three years, considering Seoul's new government push to strengthen the alliance with the United States.
Lee from the conservative opposition Grand National Party has vowed to place top security policy priority on strengthening the alliance with the United States and complying with a U.S. call to link economic aid to North Korea to its nuclear programs.
