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"The matter of Korean forces taking back wartime operational control is already being agreed by Seoul and Washington," Yoon told reporters. "The two allies will discuss Korean armed forces' capabilities and conditions to come up with a roadmap and timetable."

"The timetable we aim to meet will be specified in a roadmap to be reported in the Security Consultative Meeting," an annual meeting between Seoul and Washington in October, the minister said. A general timetable will be followed by a detailed schedule, he added.

"Once wartime operational control is transferred to us, the defense structure of the Korean Peninsula will change, and its armed forces will play a more active role in its own defense while the U.S. Forces Korea will play a more supporting role," Yoon said. But he said no decision had been made as to how responsibilities will be divided, for instance whether Korean armed forces would take charge of ground operations and the USFK of aerial and maritime operations.

Yoon would neither confirm nor deny a Chosun Ilbo report of plans to dismantle the Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC) by 2012. "As far as I know, the target year 2012 was not specified" in a key strategy document, he said. But he added, "We will review these matters in our roadmap, including the issue "of dismantling the CFC.

Asked how the USFK's role will change, the defense chief said they would be in line with the Mutual Defence Treaty between the Republic of Korea and the United States of America, whose basic principle "is that the USFK works together with the nation's armed forces in an emergency." "As long as the USFK remains on the Korean Peninsula in any shape or form, there needs to be consultation and discussion between it and the nation's armed forces, and we are developing a framework to promote cooperation and assistance between the two forces," he stressed.

Yoon also agreed with a complaint by USFK Commander Gen. Burwell Bell at a Korea Defense Forum seminar Monday about a drawn-out standoff between the allies over who should pay for the environmental cleanup at bases the USFK is to vacate. The USFK has proposed "a solution that people here can accept," especially compared to other countries where U.S. forces are stationed, the minister said. "The government agrees that those issues need to be resolved quickly given bilateral relations over the last 60 years."

(englishnews@chosun.com )