OPCON transfer unlikely during Trump's term, ex-US diplomat says

The transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) from the United States to South Korea is unlikely to happen during the remaining two years of the Trump administration, former acting U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Joseph Yun said Tuesday. He said there is no consensus in Washington that conditions are met, adding that the same applies to Seoul’s nuclear submarine ambitions and its U.S. investment pledge. “There is no consensus in Washington, for example, that conditions are ready for wartime OPCON to be transferred,” Yun, who also served as the State Department’s special representative for North Korea policy, said during the second Korea-U.S. Diplomatic Forum, which he joined remotely from the U.S. “Conditions are factors. It is never going to be ready but that still remains an issue and I cannot imagine it moving very rapidly,” he added. His remarks came about a week after the U.S. midterm elections, in which Democrats won control of Congress, both House and Senate, and amid differences between the two allies over the timing and conditions of the transfer. South Korea wa