SKorea approves troop dispatch near Somalia

SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea decided Tuesday to send a warship to waters off Somalia to help fight piracy.

The presidential office said the Cabinet approved a plan to dispatch a 4,500-ton navy vessel with 310 soldiers to the Gulf of Aden on a mission to protect South Korean commercial vessels from Somali pirates.

The planned dispatch is subject to parliamentary approval. The government plans to submit the proposal to the National Assembly later this week.

The proposal is expected to pass, since the opposition party does not oppose it.

The Defense Ministry said the warship will be equipped with a helicopter and three high-speed boats.

Calls for a troop dispatch to the region have risen in South Korea following a series of piracy cases involving its nationals. Since 2006, four South Korean vessels have been hijacked, though later released.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991 and its lawless coastline is a haven for pirates. Multimillion-dollar ransoms have become one of the only ways to make money in the impoverished nation. The pirates' biggest prize yet, a Saudi oil tanker, was released earlier this month.

An international flotilla including U.S. warships has stopped many attacks off Somalia in recent weeks, but the area is too vast to keep all ships safe in the vital sea lane that links Asia to Europe.

Somalia is located along the Gulf of Aden, which connects the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean and is one of the world's busiest waterways with some 20,000 ships passing through each year.