Ministry of National Defense Republic of Korea

The 6th Korea-U.S. Integrated Defense Dialogue(KIDD) began at the Ministry of National Defense(MND) office in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, on September 17, to discuss how to effectively leverage and strengthen deterrence power and defense capability under the situation in which North Korea continues threatening us with nuclear missiles such as ballistic missiles.

The meeting held until September 18 was attended by Assistant Minister for the MND’s defense policy office Ryu Je-seung, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia David Helvey and other defense and foreign ministry officials from both countries.

It is said that the main agenda of the 46th ROK-U.S. Security Consultative Meeting(SCM) to be held at the end of October and further timeline were discussed at the meeting including proper conditions and timing for switching over wartime operational control based on conditions.

Assistant Minister Ryu, who had a high-level meeting to discuss “switchover wartime operational control based on conditions” the previous day, said that he evaluated the dialogue as a more significant advance for discussing agendas than he expected. He also added that a basic agreement could be expected between the two countries regarding switching over control at SCM in October by formulating the agreement with more detailed parts.

“I agreed with Mr. Ryu’s evaluation of the meeting and we made some meaningful advances, yet there are still problems we have to solve. Korea and the U.S. should keep trying to find a certain type of agreement at SCM,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary Helvey.

By Seok-Jong, Lee < seokjong@dema.mil.kr >
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