Pentagon confirms the annual US-South Korea defence ministers' meeting will slip into 2027

The United States Department of Defense has confirmed that this year's Security Consultative Meeting with South Korea, the annual talks at which the two countries' defence ministers set the direction of the alliance, will not take place until early 2027. A Pentagon official told the Seoul daily Hankyoreh on 27 October, Washington time, that early 2027 had been put forward as the timing for the meeting, and described the decision as one reached by mutual agreement because of scheduling conflicts among senior leaders.

The delay is unusual. The meeting began in 1968, and according to Hankyoreh this is only the third time it has failed to happen in the year it was due. In 1998 the session slipped to January 1999 after the United States launched air strikes on Iraq, and in 1980 the Carter administration postponed the talks indefinitely in protest at the seizure of power by General Chun Doo-hwan's military faction. Chosun Ilbo, citing South Korea's defence ministry, reported that 1998 was the only previous year in which the meeting rolled over into the following year.

Wartime command at the centre

The meeting had been expected in November and was later tipped for December in Washington. Hankyoreh noted that some observers link the slip to disagreement over the transfer of wartime operational control of South Korean forces from the United States to Seoul, a transfer the government of President Lee Jae-myung wants to accelerate. Asked about that, the Pentagon official said the transfer remains a conditions-based process agreed by both countries, that the allies are committed to meeting those conditions, and that Washington would not prejudge the outcome of the consultations.

Chosun Ilbo reported that Seoul had hoped to use this year's meeting to complete the verification of full operational capability for the Future Combined Forces Command, the second of three verification stages, and to settle on a target year for the transfer to recommend to both presidents. The paper said the two sides still disagree on whether the conditions for completing that verification have been met, and that the US midterm elections and the war in the Middle East have also complicated the calendar. It added that the Military Committee Meeting, a preparatory session for the ministerial talks, had also been pushed back from the early November date announced by South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The conditions themselves date to the 2014 meeting, where the allies agreed that South Korea must be able to lead combined defence, must be able to respond to North Korea's nuclear and missile threats, and that the regional security environment must be suitable for a stable transfer. Defence Minister Kang Shin-chul told the National Assembly's defence committee on 26 October that the two governments were consulting closely to fix the transfer year, according to Chosun Ilbo.

First meeting in Cebu

Kang is due to meet US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in person for the first time on the sidelines of the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting-Plus in Cebu, in the Philippines, which runs on 28 and 29 October. JoongAng Ilbo reported that Kang told reporters at the ministry in Seoul on 27 October that alliance matters would be on the table and that he expected the transfer issue to come up, adding that the meeting schedule could be discussed if necessary. The paper said officials in Seoul doubt that sensitive questions can be explored in depth at a multilateral gathering.

Kang took office in September and had not spoken to Hegseth by telephone in the 36 days since, Chosun Ilbo reported. The postponed ministerial meeting is the forum at which the allies would normally sign off on any decision on a transfer year, so the move to early 2027 pushes that decision back by at least several weeks.