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Politic-Economic-Society-Tech

U.S. May Start Closing Korea Bases

The U.S. military could start closing and consolidating bases in South Korea as early as next year, handing back to the country a substantial amount of land the United States has been using for decades, the Pentagon said Tuesday. 

Officials gave no details. But the military newspaper Stars & Stripes reported that a plan in the final stages of negotiations calls for cutting from 41 to 26 the number of installations used by forces on the southern half of the divided peninsula. 

Closing what it called ``15 major installations'' would mean returning some 30,000 acres of land over the next ten years, the newspaper reported in its Pacific edition Tuesday. In turn, the United States would be given some 600 acres of land on which to relocate some troops and equipment. 

A plan for consolidation was ordered by former Defense Secretary William Cohen in September. In a joint communique after meeting with his South Korean counterpart, Cohen said he had authorized U.S. forces in the country to begin work on an outline for consolidating installations and returning ``a substantial amount'' of land. 

Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said he couldn't confirm numbers in the Stars & Stripes story, which quoted Col. Robert E. Durbin, assistant deputy chief of staff for the forces in Korea. 

``I don't think anybody can predict what the final number will be,'' Quigley said. ``But the hope is that at the end of the day you're going to have a more efficient structuring of the U.S. forces that are stationed in South Korea.'' 

He stressed that the plan does not include a cut in U.S. troop strength. 

U.S. troops have been stationed in South Korea since the 1950-53 war between communist North Korea and the now-democratic South. Some 37,000 Americans remain to help keep peace between the two sides, which signed an armistice but no peace treaty after the conflict. 

Asked if the closings could begin next year, Quigley said, ``You could see some interim realignments done, but there's no stipulation that some percentage must be done by a certain point in time.'' 

Durbin was quoted as saying it was too soon to name the 15 installations to be closed under what Cohen called the ``Land Partnership Plan.'' Durbin told the newspaper an agreement was close and could come as early as this fall. 

South Korean Defense Minister Kim Dong-shin discussed the plan with Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld during a visit to Washington last month, Stars & Stripes said. 

It also quoted Durbin as saying that since the war the United States has returned more than 75 percent of the land it was granted at that time to operate on. 

Durbin said that in order to consolidate, the United States must acquire some land to build facilities for people displaced in base closings. 

The plan also calls for the United States to invest $1.1 billion over the next decade to turn its remaining installations into ``planned communities'' with improved living and working conditions for U.S. military members and civilians. 

It would build or renovate barracks, motor pools, family housing, post or base exchanges, gyms, schools, medical and dental clinics and other facilities, and upgrade water, electric and other utilities, the newspaper said. 

source: The Associated Press, Tue 17 Jul 2001 

 


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