President Moon Jae-in has ensured that South Korea will regain wartime operational control(OPCON) from the United States only when conditions are ripe. 

Moon made the remark in a meeting with former South Korean military leaders and retired generals at the presidential office on Friday.

According to a person who attended the meeting, a participant at the event commented that it may be desirable to extend the OPCON transition until denuclearization of North Korea becomes visible, to which the president responded the government is also taking that into account.

Some participants brought a misunderstanding among the South Korean public that the Moon administration is pursuing the OPCON transfer within its term, and asked the government to clarify its stance on the issue to dispel such misperceptions. 

During the meeting, Moon was also known to have stressed the need to further strengthen the South Korea-U.S. alliance for the peace of Northeast Asia and the Korean Peninsula, pointing out that North Korea has not recently demanded the withdrawal of U.S. Forces Korea.