It looks like Korea will be setting up camp at the lovely and scenic Bagram Airbase in Parwan Province, Afghanistan:
Korea is expected to set up camp at the Bagram Airbase north of the capital Kabul when it sends more personnel to support the U.S.-led war effort in Afghanistan. Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan on Tuesday said Parwan Province, where the main Bagram Air Base is located, “is thought to be the most suitable area” for Korea’s Provincial Reconstruction Team to be sent.
Money quote:
Koreans are likely to take over from the Americans there because the top priority is on security rather than any active military contribution to the war. “Security is the most important factor. We prefer an area where the least combat action takes place,” Yu told reporters Tuesday.
How come nobody ever says, “We prefer an area where it’s combat operations 24/7″?
I’m torn between feeling we (i.e., Americans) should be grateful to anyone who wants to deploy troops in that God-forsaken shithole (especially at this point) and miffed that if the West thinks the Afghan War is important enough to wage, it shouldn’t be only the Anglosphere and the Dutch doing the actual fighting.
Oh, and Seoul is claiming it did NOT promise the Taliban in 2007 that it wouldn’t redeploy troops to Afghanistan:
“There was no promise (to the Taliban) that South Korea would not re-deploy its troops to Afghanistan,” said the official at the Ministry of National Defense, requesting anonymity. “We’ve checked with officials involved in the 2007 negotiations with the Taliban if there was such a promise.”
In July 2007, a group of 23 Christian volunteers were kidnapped by the Taliban while traveling on a bus in Ghazni Province. The extremists killed two men in the group before freeing the others after holding the Koreans for 43 days.
South Korean negotiators under the control of the National Intelligence Service at that time reportedly offered a deal to withdraw 210 non-combatant troops from Afghanistan by that year’s end and prevent any evangelical activities in the nation by Korean churches.
My guess is the Taliban really won’t care whether there was a prior agreement or not — they’ll attack either way.
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