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SKorea to expand rebuilding role in Afghanistan: report

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-31 11:52

SEOUL -- South Korea will send a team to Afghanistan in January to see if it can do more to help rebuild the war-ravaged country, a report said Wednesday.

Afghan day labourers walk home after a days work in Kabul on December 22. South Korea will send a team to Afghanistan in January to see if it can do more to help rebuild the war-ravaged country, a report said Wednesday. [Agencies]

"A fact-finding team led by a senior foreign ministry official will visit Afghanistan in mid-January," Yonhap news agency quoted an unidentified ministry official as saying.

The incoming US government of president elect Barack Obama is likely to ask Seoul to expand its role in Afghanistan, Yonhap said.

A ministry spokesperson could not confirm the report.

The delegation will inspect the situation in Afghanistan, including the activities of a South Korean team of medical staff and vocational training experts already there, Yonhap said.

"This has nothing to do with anything like a feasibility study to send troops back there," the official was quoted as saying.

A local media report said last week that Washington has unofficially asked Seoul to send troops back to Afghanistan.

South Korea pulled its 210 medical and engineering troops out of the country in 2007 after 23 South Korean Christian aid workers were taken hostage by Taliban rebels.

Seoul said the timing of the withdrawal was unrelated to the abductions. Two hostages were killed before the remainder were freed.

The United States has pledged to send up to 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan by mid-2009 to defeat a growing Taliban insurgency.