Afghanistan — Republic of Korea Joins ISAF as a Non Nato Contributing Nation

The Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Mar­shal Angus Hous­ton, today acknowl­edged that the NATO Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al has for­mal­ly wel­comed the Repub­lic of Korea (ROK) as the 46th con­trib­u­tor to the Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.

Fol­low­ing an offer by the South Kore­an Gov­ern­ment in Novem­ber 2009 to deploy a Provin­cial Recon­struc­tion Team (PRT) to Par­wan province, the rel­e­vant cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process­es have been com­plet­ed and the ROK has been offi­cial­ly recog­nised as a non-NATO ISAF Con­tribut­ing Nation. 

“Aus­tralia is com­mit­ted to the NATO-led ISAF mis­sion to sta­bilise Afghanistan, with around 1550 Aus­tralian Defence Force per­son­nel deployed there,” Air Chief Mar­shal Hous­ton said. 

“We warm­ly wel­come the Repub­lic of Korea as a non-NATO ISAF Con­tribut­ing Nation and look for­ward to assist­ing the ROK PRT pre­pare for its deployment. 

“The ROK team will com­prise 50–70 civil­ians, 30–50 police offi­cers and 200–400 infantry troops. The troops will be tasked with pro­tec­tion of the PRT and will not play a com­bat role.” 

Aus­tralia is the largest non-NATO con­trib­u­tor to the ISAF mis­sion in Afghanistan. Our mil­i­tary con­tri­bu­tion is part of a Whole-of-Gov­ern­ment effort to deny Afghanistan as a train­ing ground and oper­at­ing base for glob­al ter­ror­ist organ­i­sa­tions; sta­bilise the nation through a com­bi­na­tion of mil­i­tary, police and civil­ian efforts; and train the Afghan Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Forces to a lev­el where they can take secu­ri­ty respon­si­bil­i­ty for Oruz­gan Province themselves. 

Media con­tact: Defence Media Liai­son: (02) 6127 1999 or 0408 498 664 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia