Senate NDAA Includes Provision for OPCON Transfer Reports to South Korea

By Song Sang-ho

WASHINGTON, June 18 (Yonhap) -- A Senate version of an annual U.S. defense bill includes a provision calling for the defense secretary to provide regular reports on a road map for the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) to South Korea, its text showed Thursday.

The inclusion of the provision in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2027 apparently signals the upper house's will to examine the OPCON transition process, which the administration of South Korean President Lee Jae Myung seeks to complete before its term ends in 2030.

It stipulates that by no later than March 1 next year and every 90 days thereafter through 2030, the Pentagon chief should provide the appropriate committees of Congress with a report on the road map for the implementation of the conditions-based OPCON transition, which the allies signed in 2018.

The report should include the assessment by the U.S. Pacific Command commander and the U.S. Forces Korea commander regarding the conditions that must be achieved before the OPCON transfer, the bill says.

South Korea handed over operational control of its troops to the U.S.-led U.N. Command during the 1950-53 Korean War. It was then transferred to the allies' Combined Forces Command when the command was launched in 1978. Seoul retook peacetime OPCON in 1994, but wartime OPCON still remains in the U.S.' hands.

As was the case in this year's version, the Senate's new bill includes a provision prohibiting the use of funds authorized by the act to reduce the number of U.S. troops in South Korea below 28,500.

Last week, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted 18-9 to advance the NDAA, sending it to the full Senate floor.

The defense bill is set to go through a series of congressional procedures, including legislative deliberations and the process of narrowing gaps between the House and Senate and merging their respective versions of the bill.