South Korea and the United States have decided to move their annual defense-minister-level Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) from the end of this year to early next year, the Kyunghyang Shinmun reported on the 28th. Defense Minister Kang Shin-chul met US Defense Secretary (War Secretary) Pete Hegseth in the Philippines the same day for the first time.
According to the Kyunghyang Shinmun, the US Department of Defense said the SCM, expected in December, will slip to early 2027. The paper also relayed a US explanation that the move was mutually agreed because the two leaders' schedules did not line up. It noted this will be only the third time the meeting runs into the following year, after 1998 and 1980.
광고 문의 · 300×250The Philippines talks and a December Washington meeting
The Kyunghyang Shinmun reported that Kang met Hegseth in the Philippines, where both were attending the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting-Plus. It was their first face-to-face meeting, 36 days after Kang took office. In the same report, citing the Defense Ministry, the two agreed to hold the SCM in early next year and to hold a bilateral defense ministers' meeting in Washington in December instead.
The ministry was said to have stated that the two ministers agreed to cooperate so that the transfer of wartime operational control proceeds smoothly and on schedule. The Chosun Ilbo, however, reported that the US War Department issued no separate readout of this particular meeting. The account of the talks therefore rests on the Korean side for now, and the US interpretation has not been confirmed.
Timing intertwined with the OPCON schedule
The SCM has traditionally been the venue where the direction of alliance issues, including the target year for operational control transfer, the so-called ‘X-year’, is set. According to the Kyunghyang Shinmun, Kang told the National Assembly on the 26th that the two sides are completing full operational capability verification and setting the X-year, with broad agreement on the outline. With the meeting moved into next year, some may expect that announcement to slip as well.
Meanwhile, a US official said the transfer is a process based on conditions the two countries agreed, and that control will be handed over once they are met, the paper wrote. Concern persists in Seoul that a transfer within the current administration's term may become difficult, but no official explanation has yet said that this postponement itself changes the transfer timetable.