South Korea can expect to take on more responsibility for defending itself but will not be able to take over wartime control from Washington just yet, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made clear on Friday, according to Reuters. Ahead of Friday's annual security talks between Rumsfeld and South Korean Defence Minister Yoon Kwang-ung, South Korean officials said they would try at least to begin discussions on transferring command to Seoul if there was a war with the North. Rumsfeld told reporters South Korea had grown from a devastated poor country after the 1950-53 Korean War to an economic powerhouse with increasingly capable armed forces. "As the capabilities of the Republic of Korea grow, obviously they will assume more and more responsibility as they have been doing in recent years," he said. "As that happens in an orderly way there will be adjustments in the command relationship and those are the kinds of things allies discuss." Asked when such a change might happen, he said: "It would take place at that moment when the Republic of Korea and the United States of America decide that it would be appropriate." The defence chiefs of South Korea and the United States said in a joint communique after Friday's talks they had "agreed to appropriately accelerate discussions on command relations and wartime operational control".
