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Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back said Friday he will make the “utmost” efforts to ensure the country can retake wartime operational control (OPCON) from the United States within President Lee Jae Myung’s five-year term. Ahn made the remarks after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently assessed South Korea’s push to retake OPCON from Washington as a “great” endeavor. “The transition of wartime operational control will be pursued as swiftly as possible within the current administration’s term through close coordination between South Korea and the U.S., while maintaining a strong and steadfast alliance,” Ahn told reporters at an airport before heading to Malaysia for a multilateral security forum. Ahn will attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Defense Ministers’ Meeting-Plus in Kuala Lumpur, set for Saturday. Seoul and Washington have been working on a conditions-based OPCON transition. South Korea handed over its OPCON during the 1950-53 Korean War. It retook its peacetime OPCON in 1994, but wartime OPCON still remains in U.S. hands. The issue is likely to be high on