U.S. has returned 31% of Yongsan base

A view of the Yongsan base from the presidential office located in the Defense Ministry in Seoul on May 2. [KIM MIN-SEOK]

The U.S. military returned 31 percent of land at the Yongsan base in central Seoul as of last month, according to the Land Ministry, a step toward the building of a national park there.

“A total of 764,000 square meters [around 190 acres] of land have been returned in three different installments since December 2021, which is about 31 percent of the total base area,” said the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in a statement Tuesday.

The base, which totals around 2 million square meters, is being returned in parts to the Korean government based on an agreement Seoul and Washington struck in 2004 to move the base to Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi and other parts of Korea.

The process, delayed for over a decade, finally began in December 2020 when some 50,000 square meters of the base, including a softball field, were returned.

An additional 165,000 square meters of the base, which used to hold military dormitories and offices, were returned in February, and an additional 368,000 square meters that hold an underground bunker and a baseball field were returned in May, according to the ministry.

Still remaining on the Yongsan base is the Combined Forces Command, a key military facility. Its new headquarters is being built in Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, currently home to the headquarters of the US Forces Korea and the U.S.-led UN Command.

The Combined Forces Command was set to relocate to the base in Pyeongtaek later this year.

Washington and Seoul struck another agreement in June 2020 to keep some U.S. military facilities remaining in Yongsan, such as a branch office of the USFK or the UN Command.

This plan, however, has been up in the air since President Yoon Suk-yeol moved the presidential office from the Blue House to the Defense Ministry headquarters in Yongsan, which sits adjacent to the base.

Korea intends to make a public park out of the returned lands in Yongsan.

The park would be connected to the areas holding the National Museum of Korea and the War Memorial of Korea.

The schedule to open the park, once set at 2027, was adjusted in December 2021 to at least seven years after a complete return of the base, according to the Land Ministry.

The deadline for a complete return of the base has not been set by Washington and Seoul.

BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]