Lee, Obama agree to delay wartime control transfer

TORONTO -- Seoul and Washington agreed Saturday to postpone the U.S. transfer of wartime operational control to South Korea until 2015, given the volatile security situation on the Korean Peninsula with North Korea’s continued military provocations.

President Lee Myung-bak and U.S. President Barack Obama agreed in a summit here to reschedule the OPCON handover to Dec. 1, 2015, three years later than previously planned. The two are in Toronto to attend the G20summit.

Obama also promised to submit the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement to the U.S. Congress in “a few months” from December after discussing necessary “adjustments,” stating that it will not be a “renegotiation.”

The decision to delay the OPCON transition “reflects the current security conditions on the Korean Peninsula and will strengthen the alliance of the two nations,” Lee told reporters after the summit.

President Lee Myung-bak and U.S. President Barack Obama hold a summit in Toronto on Saturday. Yonhap News