Global Security Newswire

South Korea intends to boost its participation in the Proliferation Security Initiative, a U.S.-led effort aimed at interdicting sea vessels around the globe thought to be smuggling weapons of mass destruction, a Seoul Foreign Ministry official said yesterday (see GSN, May 24).

The South intends to become part of the initiative's 20-member Operational Experts Group as one of a number of actions taken by Seoul following the March 26 torpedoing of one of its warships near the inter-Korean border, the ministry official said, the Korea Times reported.

The Operational Experts Group directs PSI policy. Other OEG members include Australia, Canada, Japan, Singapore and the United States. There are 95 nations in the Proliferation Security Initiative.

Becoming a full OEG member is anticipated to grant South Korea improved access to information on North Korea's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, as well as allow it to take a stronger role in PSI activities.

South Korea is collaborating with other PSI nations with the goal of becoming an OEG member by November when the consultative body meets in Japan, sources said. Seoul has yet to formally seek full OEG membership, though it did take part in the group's gathering in Poland last June. The South Korean government let it be known it intended to become a full member following North Korea's second nuclear weapons test last May.

Seoul has not taken part in PSI naval interdiction training drills in the past due to concerns that it would lead to a hostile reaction from Pyongyang (Lee Tae-hoon, Korea Times, June 20).