SEOUL, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- South Korea planned to regain its wartime operational control from the United States within a five-year term of President Moon Jae-in, a lawmaker of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party said Friday based on documents submitted by the defense ministry.
According to Rep. Kim Hack-yong of the Liberty Korea Party, the Moon government set up a "three-stage roadmap" to recover its wartime command of South Korean forces from Washington by early 2020s.
It was at least three to four years faster than the planned transfer under the previous Park Geun-hye administration.
South Korea handed over its operational command to the U.S. forces after the three-year Korean War broke out in 1950. The country won back its peacetime operational control in 1994.
Under the three-stage roadmap, the Moon government will first build up its own defense capability by the end of next year under the current platform of South Korea-U.S. allied forces.
The second-stage was scheduled to kick off in 2019 to stage the joint South Korea-U.S. annual war games commanded by the South Korean military.
The third stage had yet to be decided upon, according the lawmaker who said the operational control transfer should be pushed for cautiously.
President Moon said in his speech Thursday to celebrate the 69th anniversary of Armed Forces Day that he aimed to regain the wartime operational control early from the United States.
To strengthen its standalone defense capability, Moon said the military should make all-out efforts to rapidly build a so-called "three-axis" defense platform, including the Kill Chain, the Korean Air and Missile Defense (KAMD) and the Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation (KMPR), mostly for responding to possible attacks from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
