Top U.S. Officer Urges S. Korea to Keep GSOMIA with Japan

Tokyo, Nov. 13 (Jiji Press)--Gen. Mark Milley, the highest-ranking U.S. military officer, urged South Korea on Wednesday to maintain its military information-sharing agreement with Japan. "My message to South Korea is don't let it (the pact) expire," Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters in Tokyo. "It's in your interest to continue to renew it." South Korea has decided to scrap the General Security of Military Information Agreement, or GSOMIA, with Japan. The agreement is due to expire on Nov. 22. During his visit to South Korea from Wednesday, Milley plans to call on government and military officials there to maintain the agreement. He will make the request jointly with U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who is also visiting the country later this week. Only North Korea, China and maybe Russia benefit from letting GSOMIA expire, Milley said, warning that it is in their interest to drive a wedge between Japan and South Korea, the United States and South Korea, and Japan and the United States. The pact is "one of the issues that plays into North Korean and Chinese hands in order to drive that wedge," he said. Milley also warned of China's development of a variety of land, air and submarine-launched missiles. He suggested that an effective way of offsetting China's military buildup could be for the U.S. military to deploy to Japan intermediate range missiles, whose possession was banned under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the United States and Russia. Still, he stressed that Washington will not "deploy anything to Japanese soil without coordination and (the) approval of the Japanese government." Asked for his opinion about Japan deploying ballistic missiles to counter the Chinese military capabilities, Milley said that there is no limit to the Chinese development of various missile technologies and that such a move would be "in interest of the United States and our partners in the region, specifically Japan." END