US forces will regain control over a major annual military exercise with South Korea amid rising tensions with the North following the sinking of one of Seoul's warships, officials said Thursday.

Seoul's defence ministry said the Combined Forces Command led by US General Walter Sharp will retake control of the computerised war game called Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG) from this year.

In 2008 and last year the South's military took control of the exercise, to prepare for a scheduled transfer of wartime command in the military alliance.

UFG, which is due to start in mid-August, is the world's largest computerised war game and rehearses defending the South from an attack by North Korean.

"The Combined Forces Command will take back control of the annual drill, with the US military playing a leading role, from this year," a defence ministry spokesman told AFP.

"It is a decision made in consideration of heightened tensions over the sinking of the Cheonan (warship)."

The spokesman declined to confirm a local media report that the change was requested by Sharp.

South Korea is scheduled from April 2012 to take control of its military forces in the event of war.

Under the current arrangement a US army general in wartime would command 650,000 South Korean troops as well as 28,500 American troops stationed in the country.

There have been calls in both countries to rethink the command handover as cross-border tensions flare. The South accuses the North of torpedoing the Cheonan, a South Korean corvette, on March 26 with the loss of 46 lives.

The North denies involvement and has threatened attack in response to reprisals.

The US Senate's Armed Services Committee has called on Defense Secretary Robert Gates to present by December 1 a report on the implications of the wartime command change.

earlier related report
Senior US official vows solidarity with S.Korea over warship
Seoul (AFP) June 17, 2010 - A senior US official Thursday pledged strong support for South Korea's campaign to censure North Korea at the United Nations over the sinking of a warship.

Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell was visiting Seoul days after the North threatened military action in response to any UN condemnation.

"We are here to make clear our strongest possible commitment of solidarity with South Korea," Campbell told reporters before talks with Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan and other officials.

"We are determined to show that our alliance is standing very firmly together during an absolutely critical period."

Regional tensions have risen sharply since the South accused its hardline communist neighbour of torpedoing a South Korean warship in March with the loss of 46 lives.

The South has announced its own reprisals and also wants a strongly worded resolution, or at least a presidential statement, from the 15-member UN Security Council.

This week it briefed council members on the evidence collected by a multinational investigation, which found overwhelming evidence that a North Korean submarine torpedoed the Cheonan.

The North, which angrily denies the South's claims as "sheer fabrication", also addressed members.

In a rare press conference Tuesday, its UN ambassador Sin Son-Ho said that if the council takes action against Pyongyang, "follow-up measures will be carried out by our military forces".

The South will have to persuade veto-wielding council members China and Russia to sign up to any statement censuring the North.

China, the sole major ally and chief economic partner of the impoverished North, has been non-committal about its stance.

Russia sent naval experts to examine the South's evidence, including what Seoul says is part of a North Korean torpedo salvaged from the seabed.

Its ambassador to South Korea, Konstantin Vnukov, said Wednesday that Russian specialists were scrutinising related data and would take two to three more weeks to reach a conclusion on the matter.

However, Vnukov denied Moscow was an ally of Pyongyang.

"It was during the Cold War period when we had special treaties," Yonhap news agency quoted the diplomat as saying. "Now our relationship with North Korea is very practical."