President Lee Jae Myung on Tuesday ordered the Defense Ministry to come up with redevelopment plans for multiple former military bases and land located near the inter-Korean border that has been returned by the US Forces Korea.
Lee ordered the ministry to “proactively review” the issue of how to use the land during Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said during an afternoon briefing
In 2004, Seoul and Washington agreed to relocate all US forces to garrisons located south of the Han River and move the USFK and United Nations Command headquarters to Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, approximately 70 kilometers south of Seoul.
The relocations were completed in 2018 and in the process, several US military bases near the border, including Camp Red Cloud, in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province were shut down.
The Gyeonggi provincial government in recent years has been struggling to come up with redevelopment plans for the abandoned bases.
Lee’s latest order is aligned with his campaign pledge to “designate the border region as a special economic zone for peace” and “expand government support for the returned US military sites and nearby areas.”
The demilitarized zone would be redeveloped as an ecotourism district to be used for exchange and cooperation with North Korea, he added.
mkjung@heraldcorp.com
