Vehicles drive on the road leading into the former US base Camp Red Cloud in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province, on July 28, 2026. The road is named Siminpumeu-ro, a pun on returning the former base to the Korean people. (Song Sang-ho/Hankyoreh)
President Lee Jae Myung on Wednesday criticized what he described as delays in negotiations over the return of land granted to the US military, saying the situation “defied common sense.”These remarks were made during a working report meeting at the Blue House with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Unification, Ministry of National Defense and Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs. “From the US military’s perspective, we invested money so that they could move into the Pyeongtaek base and vacate elsewhere,” Lee stated. “But now we are effectively unable to use that land because they claim the final processes have not yet been completed. This has been going on for years.”When Minister of National Defense Ahn Gyu-back replied that the US military has been dragging its feet, Lee replied, “That’s why you shouldn’t pay up front.” “Of course we trusted them due to bilateral goodwill, but they haven’t been doing their part from the beginning. It cost 10 trillion won to build the Pyeongtaek base,” the Korean president said, asking how long it had been since the US military moved into the base. “In my view it almost feels like an excuse, citing various reasons for not giving it back, and it’s a real problem if we can’t use [the land] for this or that reason,” he went on. The term “grant” refers to the Korean government providing the United States Forces Korea (USFK) with usage rights to facilities and land. Accordingly, the USFK must return the land upon relocation of the base.Korea and the US signed the Yongsan Relocation Program (for the relocation of the USFK base in Yongsan, Seoul to Pyeongtaek) and the Land Partnership Plan (a plan to consolidate the USFK bases scattered around the country) in 2004, and work to shift the Yongsan base and other US bases from across Korea to Pyeongtaek has been ongoing since then. In March 2016, then USFK Commander Vincent Brooks noted that the base relocation project cost nearly US$10.8 billion and that South Korea’s investment covered over 90 percent of the cost.The United Nations Command and USFK, which were formerly located in the Yongsan base, moved to Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek in June 2018, while the ROK/US Combined Forces Command relocated in November 2022, closing the curtain on the USFK’s “Yongsan era.”However, the process for returning the granted land has been delayed due to issues surrounding environmental contamination assessments, the division of cleaning costs, and bilateral talks between Korea and the US.By Kwon Hyuk-chul, staff reporter; Seo Young-ji, staff reporter; Jang Ye-ji, staff reporterPlease direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
