Posted on 09/23/2004 3:33:05 PM PDT by mdittmar
South Korea's military completed deployment of its 2,800-strong contingent in Iraq on Wednesday and its commander said protecting his troops was at the top of his agenda.
Major-General Hwang Eui-don met Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani in the Kurdish capital to discuss security and planned projects for his peacekeeping and reconstruction force.
South Korea has the third-largest contingent in Iraq after the United States and Britain.
Eui-don said the visit was intended to show appreciation for the welcome given to Korean troops in northern Iraq's Kurdish zone, but that the emphasis of the talks was on security arrangements for his soldiers.
"Security was the most important issue under discussion. The prime minister has promised to provide us with maximum security," Eui-don said.
The Korean troops are protected by Kurdish security forces, a condition the Kurds needed before agreeing to the deployment.
Concerns over security led South Korea to impose a news blackout on the deployment from its start in August until all the troops had arrived in the northern Iraqi city.
NEWS BLACKOUT
That media ban was lifted on Wednesday, and Korean officials in Eui-don's entourage promised full access for media coverage of the troops' activities, which will focus mainly on civilian infrastructure repair in the Arbil area.
Arbil is controlled by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), a Kurdish faction which runs half of Iraq's Kurdish zone with an elected administration headed by Barzani, who recently returned from a visit to Seoul.
He told Reuters the presence in Arbil of Iraq's contingent would benef the entire region. "The new Iraq is in need of the international community's assistance, so we appreciate the decision of the South Korean government to come here," he said.
Korean military representatives said Eui-don plans to meet KDP President Masoud Barzani on Thursday.
Another 800 soldiers will be airlifted to Iraq after their camp is constructed in November.
Lawmakers from South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun's Uri Party said a proposal to extend the mission would likely be brought before parliament in December, a year after the previous parliament approved the deployment.
Civic group members in South Korea have demonstrated against the deployment, waging sit-ins and clashing with police outside the gates of the troops' training base and a military airport where they boarded flights to Kuwait.
When I served in Korea the ROK sergeant-major at our installation was a holy terror. It was rumored that if while being disciplined an ROK enlisted man was knocked down, he'd better land at attention.
The Viet Cong went miles out of their way to avoid ROK units, who were feared as among the toughest and most ruthless fighters in the war.
Hopefully these troops will teach terrorists they're barking up a very wrong tree.
Yeah man, you're right as hell about the ROKs...I was SUPRISED as all hell when the rof K's response to the beheading of their hostage was NOT an immidiate thunder run through the associated areas by about2,000 or so pi$$ed offROK troopies. Maybe it will really happen now, especially if those Kurds and the ROKs work together; picture a bunch of Peshmerga types running anok with ROKs as a "stabilizing"infleuence. Hey, it could be kinda fun.
Hmmm,guess that would hurt their candidate kerry.
Holy moly....with the training in martial arts...they will be flipping insurgents like pancakes!!
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