Seoul: US forces will regain control over a major annual military exercise with South Korea amid rising tensions with the North following the sinking of one of Seoul’s warships, officials said Thursday.
Seoul’s defence ministry said the Combined Forces Command led by US General Walter Sharp will retake control of the computerised war game called Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG) from this year.
In 2008 and last year the South’s military took control of the exercise, to prepare for a scheduled transfer of wartime command in the military alliance.
UFG, which is due to start in mid-August, is the world’s largest computerised war game and rehearses defending the South from an attack by North Korean.
“The Combined Forces Command will take back control of the annual drill, with the US military playing a leading role, from this year,” a defence ministry spokesman told AFP.
“It is a decision made in consideration of heightened tensions over the sinking of the Cheonan (warship).”
The spokesman declined to confirm a local media report that the change was requested by Sharp.
South Korea is scheduled from April 2012 to take control of its military forces in the event of war.
Under the current arrangement a US army general in wartime would command 650,000 South Korean troops as well as 28,500 American troops stationed in the country.
There have been calls in both countries to rethink the command handover as cross-border tensions flare. The South accuses the North of torpedoing the Cheonan, a South Korean corvette, on March 26 with the loss of 46 lives.
The North denies involvement and has threatened attack in response to reprisals.
The US Senate’s Armed Services Committee has called on Defense Secretary Robert Gates to present by December 1 a report on the implications of the wartime command change.
