Posted on 04/20/2004 5:37:23 PM PDT by swilhelm73
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea remains committed to deploying troops to Iraq despite the surge in violence there, but their task will remain purely reconstruction, the country's foreign minister said on Monday.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon told reporters the government remained firmly committed to plans approved by parliament in February to send 3,000 troops in addition to the 600 that went to Iraq nearly a year ago.
"This is not an issue of sending the troops because things are stable and not sending them because things are not," he told a news conference.
South Korea holds a parliamentary election on Thursday. One of the three main parties has said Seoul should rethink its deployment plan after the upsurge in fighting in Iraq, and the brief abductions last week of South Korean missionaries.
Ban said that while troops would protect themselves if attacked, their mandate was limited to reconstruction.
"The Korean troops in Iraq will not be engaged in any offensive operations, but concentrate on economic rehabilitation and humanitarian activities," he said.
Small anti-war protests calling for the withdrawal of the troops have received little public support. The minority opposition Millennium Democratic Party is the only mainstream party to question the deployment.
Brief abductions of two groups of South Korean civilians by Iraqi insurgents last week have led Seoul to impose a virtual ban on travel to the country.
But the government has refused to call the troop deployment into question, unfazed even by the threat by Iraqi militia to kill Japanese civilians they are holding unless Tokyo pulled its troops out of the country.
A team of South Korean military officers left for Iraq on Friday for a 10-day mission to survey areas being considered for the second batch of South Korean troops. South Korea already has 600 military engineers and medics in Iraq, and the additional deployment will give it the third largest contingent there.
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, whose planned visit to South Korea was put off a year ago with the start of the U.S.-led war on Iraq, arrives in Seoul on Thursday following stops in Tokyo and Beijing.
Ban said Seoul had made thorough security preparations for Cheney's two-day stopover in South Korea, a U.S. ally of more than 50 years and host to 37,000 U.S. troops.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.