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South Korea May Send Troops to Iraq, but at a price
EFL and Registration neededWith the Bush administration pressing South Korea to send up to 5,000 combat troops to Iraq, South Koreaâs president is setting a price: progress by Washington in reducing tensions with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program. "I fear that if we decide to go ahead and send troops, it would not help achieve the second round of six-way talks over North Koreaâs nuclear program, or an agreement to be reached," President Roh Moo-Hyun said last Friday, the latest of a series of statements linking a dispatch of troops to Iraq to defusing tensions with North Korea. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is to visit here on Oct. 24, and newspaper analysts see that visit as a move by the Americans to press Mr. Roh to make a public decision by that date. "The U.S. wants us to replace the 101st Airborne Division based in Mosul," in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Cha Young-Koo, deputy defense minister, told reporters here last Thursday. "The division plans to leave the region between February and March." With other countries that have agreed to send troops to Iraq asking for foreign aid or free trade pacts, South Korea believes it can win a more pragmatic, results-oriented American approach to the one-year-old nuclear standoff with North Korea. "Before making any decision on the troop dispatch, it is extremely important to arrive at a positive outlook for and conviction in peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula," Mr. Roh said here in a speech last Wednesday, Armed Forces Day in South Korea. "More than anything, a stable atmosphere of dialogue should be promoted so that it will lead to a conviction that the Northâs nuclear issue can, indeed, be resolved peacefully." On Saturday, a 12-member South Korean fact-finding team reported to Mr. Roh about their tour of Iraq. Brig. Gen. Kang Dae-Young told reporters that Iraq seemed more stable than portrayed in the press, saying, "People roamed freely and economic activities were also brisk." But there have already been two demonstrations in Seoul in the last week against sending troops to Iraq. Posted by: Paul Moloney 2003-10-08 |
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