“The on-site visit is expected to defuse public worries by having firsthand verification on whether actions have been taken properly on the concerned facility and those who have been exposed in accordance with the safety guidelines at home and abroad throughout the first shipment and to the disposal.”
– South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense
A joint working group that was launched earlier this month to look into the delivery mishap will visit the biological laboratory inside the Osan base, south of Seoul, on Aug. 6 (image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, July 29 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea and the United States will conduct a joint on-site investigation of the U.S. Forces Korea’s Osan Air Base next week over an accidental shipment of a live anthrax sample sent there in April, the Ministry of National Defense said Wednesday.
A joint working group that was launched earlier this month to look into the delivery mishap will visit the biological laboratory inside the Osan base, south of Seoul, on Aug. 6 in order to “personally verify and assess the overall process of the accident,” the ministry said in a statement.
The process of the anthrax sample’s delivery and steps taken after the delivery, including the disposal of the sample, will be subject to the firsthand inspection, it said.
The schedule of the on-site probe was confirmed in the first meeting of the joint working group held earlier in the day at the ministry in Seoul.
The Pentagon said in May that live anthrax samples were accidentally sent from a military laboratory in Utah to other labs in the U.S. and several foreign countries in April, including the lab at the Osan Air Base.
Anthrax is a lethal disease caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis, which is a toxic substance often used to produce biochemical weapons. In 2001, anthrax-laced letters were mailed to U.S. news media and Senate offices and killed five people.
As part of next week’s inspection, the group of people who handled the live sample in April will enter South Korea and perform a demonstration of how it was tested and disposed of then, the ministry noted.
The joint working group will review law revisions aimed at preventing the recurrence of a similar accident and report the result to the joint Status of Forces Agreement committee in December, it noted, adding that it will also delve into ways to step up the allies’ cooperation on defense against biochemical weapons, especially from North Korea.
Amid growing public outcry over the inbound shipment of the lethal bacterium, the ministry vowed more fact-finding efforts last week, including the on-site probe of the military lab.
A ministry official said that following the inspection, the USFK will open the lab for local and foreign media to view the facility, a move interpreted as aggressive U.S. action to dispel any public mistrust.
“The schedule of the media visit to the biological lab is still under discussion and has not been decided yet,” the official noted.
(Yonhap)
