S. Korea mulls deploying troops north of Kabul

By Lee Chi-dong

SEOUL, Nov. 17 (Yonhap) -- South Korea is considering setting up a camp for soldiers and civilian aid workers in a northern Afghan province, Seoul's top diplomat said Tuesday, following an inter-agency team's weeklong information gathering-trip there.

Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said his government is looking at two or three
regions including Parwan Province, just north of the Afghan capital Kabul, and
Bamyan to the west.
"For now, Parwan is thought to be the most suitable area," he told reporters when
asked where the South Korean troops will be deployed. The relatively stable area
is the site of the main U.S. Air Force base.
Yu added that security is the most important factor in picking the location of
the camp, as well as the expected synergy between South Korea's existing
reconstruction work based in the U.S. Air Force base in Bagram and the envisioned
independent team.
Two dozen South Korean medical staff and job-training experts are currently at
the Bagram base helping the U.S.-led Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), part
of Seoul's efforts to make up for its 2007 pullout of about 200 army medics and
engineers from Afghanistan.
Yu's ministry announced a plan late last month to increase the number of civilian
aid workers in Afghanistan to at least 130 and operate an independent PRT,
including hundreds of soldiers to protect the workers. South Korea intends to
maintain scores of workers in the Bagram base.
Yu said the government will decide the details through consultations with the
Afghan government and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)
before seeking parliamentary approval for the troop dispatch early next year.
As part of such efforts, a 15-member government delegation headed by Deputy
Foreign Minister Lee Yong-joon made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan starting
on Nov. 12 and met key Afghan officials including Foreign Minister R. D. Spanta,
Defense Minister A. R. Wardak, and Gen. Stanley McChrystal, U.S. Commander of the
ISAF, to discuss where and how Seoul will operate its own reconstruction squad.
"On the basis of the results of the fact-finding team's visit, the government
plans to decide the details including the base location for the PRT, the size of
the civilian, troop, and police force to be dispatched, and the scope of their
activity," the ministry said. The visit was kept secret until its departure from
Afghanistan on Tuesday due to security concerns.
The minister said the defense ministry will submit a motion for the troop
dispatch to the National Assembly as soon as related details are decided.
Partisan strife is expected, however, as the main opposition Democratic Party is
against Seoul's military deployment abroad irrelevant of U.N.-led peacekeeping
operations (PKO), while the ruling Grand National Party, which holds a majority
in the 299-seat National Assembly, supports it.
The liberal DP's top leaders agreed at a meeting Monday to oppose the troop
dispatch.
"We took into consideration the fact that the purpose of the troop dispatch is
not to participate in PKO but to join multinational forces and that Afghanistan's
internal situation is very unstable. Furthermore, there are clear threats by the
Taliban against our people," the party spokesman Rep. Woo Sang-ho said.
Militants have attacked a South Korean company operating in Afghanistan three
times since last month, but no South Koreans were harmed, according to officials
here.
lcd@yna.co.kr
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