Justin_stacy
04/13/04, 10:51 AM
US military to stop patrol Korean border
SEOUL, April 13 (UPI) -- The U.S. military will end 50 years of patrolling the tense inter-Korean border, U.S. military officials in Seoul said Tuesday.
The United States has decided to relinquish its only military outpost along the border before the end of October, part of plans to let South Korea play a greater role in its defense, they said.
With the decision to turn over the Observation Post Ouellette to South Korea, there will no longer be American soldiers along the 156-mile-long border except for in the truce village of Panmunjom, known as the Joint Security Area.
Ouellette is the only guard post inside the 2.5 mile wide Demilitarized Zone that has been staffed by U.S. soldiers.
The DMZ, created at the end of the war as a buffer area to keep opposing armies apart, became the world's most heavily militarized spot. Almost 2 million troops from both sides are deployed on the peninsula, including 37,000 American troops stationed in South Korea.
SEOUL, April 13 (UPI) -- The U.S. military will end 50 years of patrolling the tense inter-Korean border, U.S. military officials in Seoul said Tuesday.
The United States has decided to relinquish its only military outpost along the border before the end of October, part of plans to let South Korea play a greater role in its defense, they said.
With the decision to turn over the Observation Post Ouellette to South Korea, there will no longer be American soldiers along the 156-mile-long border except for in the truce village of Panmunjom, known as the Joint Security Area.
Ouellette is the only guard post inside the 2.5 mile wide Demilitarized Zone that has been staffed by U.S. soldiers.
The DMZ, created at the end of the war as a buffer area to keep opposing armies apart, became the world's most heavily militarized spot. Almost 2 million troops from both sides are deployed on the peninsula, including 37,000 American troops stationed in South Korea.