South Korea stands firm on troop deployment

South Korea said today it will go ahead with its plan to send troops to Iraq despite the abduction of a South Korean man and the televised broadcast of his desperate pleas to stay alive.

The kidnapping tested South Korea’s resolve just days after the US ally announced it will dispatch 3,000 troops to assist in reconstruction efforts in northern Iraq. Once the deployment is complete, South Korea will be the largest coalition partner after the United States and Britain.

The Arab satellite TV network Al-Jazeera yesterday aired a videotape purportedly from al-Qaida linked militants showing a South Korean hostage begging for his life and pleading with his government to withdraw troops from Iraq.

South Korean media identified the hostage as Kim Sun-il, 33, an employee of South Korea’s Gana General Trading, a supplier for the US military.

Kim is heard screaming in English: “Korean soldiers, please get out of here. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I know that your life is important, but my life is important.”

Kim’s tearful mother, Shin Young-ja, told YTN television in Seoul: “The government should do whatever it can to save my son’s life. Time is running out.”

The kidnappers, who identified themselves as belonging to a group led by Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, gave South Korea 24 hours to meet its demand or “we will send you the head of this Korean”.

Officials of South Korea’s National Security Council, and the ministries of foreign affairs and defence, hastily met after news broke of the abduction.

“There is no change in the government’s spirit and position that it will send troops to Iraq to help establish peace and rebuild Iraq,” deputy foreign minister Choi Young-jin said at a news conference.

President Roh Moo-hyun said the incident was “deeply unfortunate and regrettable” and instructed his government to do all it can to win the release of the hostage, Roh’s office said in a statement.

“President Roh instructed the government to increase efforts to explain to the Iraqi people that South Korea is sending troops to Iraq not to engage in hostile acts against Iraq, but to focus on assisting reconstruction there,” the statement said.

Kim was abducted on June 17 while making a delivery in the city of Fallujah, Choi said.

YTN said Kim had been in Iraq for about eight months. His distraught sister, Kim Jung-sook, told the station that his family last spoke to him in April. At that time, she said, Kim Sun-il was in the Fallujah area and planned to return to South Korea in July to attend his father’s 70th birthday.

Kim, a devout Christian who is the youngest of eight brothers and sisters, studied Arabic as well as English in South Korea.

South Korea announced on Friday that it will send 3,000 soldiers beginning in early August to the Irbil area in northern Iraq. Some 600 South Korean military medics and engineers who are currently in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah will redeploy to Irbil to join the larger force.