Text Fwd: South Korea To Attend NATO Conference On Afghan War

* Informed by StopNATO on Dec. 21, 2009

South Korea To Attend NATO Conference On Afghan War
Xinhua News Agency
December 22, 2009

-The first-ever participation in a NATO conference follows the country's
decision earlier this month to send 350 troops to the war-torn Central Asian
country....

SEOUL: South Korea is likely to attend a North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) conference to seek ways to strengthen cooperation with other nations in
dispatching troops to Afghanistan and coordinate military operations there,
local media reported Tuesday.

"We are considering sending a general-grade officer from the Joint Chief of
Staffs," an unnamed military source was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency,
adding attending the conference would enhance the country's "military
diplomacy."

The first-ever participation in a NATO conference follows the country's decision
earlier this month to send 350 troops to the war-torn Central Asian country in
order to protect the South Korean Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT).

The troop redeployment plan, currently awaiting parliamentary approval, meets
sharply split receptions from the governing party and opposition parties,
prompting four opposition parties to issue a joint statement Monday to criticize
the move.

South Korea pulled out of Afghanistan in 2007 when 23 South Korean Christian
missionaries were held captive by the Taliban, with two of them killed and the
rest released.

Since then, Seoul has only taken the role of providing medical and vocational
training by assisting the United States and only two dozen South Korean
volunteers work inside the U.S. Air Force Base in Bagram, north of Kabul.

Afghanistan's rebel militant group Taliban has recently issued a threat against
the planned troop dispatch, which South Korea's defense ministry last week
played down by calling it "conventional."
===========================
Stop NATO