NEW YORK, May 4 (APP):US President Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to prepare options for reducing the number of American troops in South Korea, the New York Times has reported Friday, citing unnamed sources briefed on the order. The move comes just weeks before the president is expected to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and days after the two Koreas held a summit at the Demilitarized …
Trump orders Pentagon to consider reducing US troops in South Korea: NYT
NEW YORK, May 4 (APP):US President Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to prepare options for reducing the number of American troops in South Korea, the New York Times has reported Friday, citing unnamed sources briefed on the order.
The move comes just weeks before the president is expected to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and days after the two Koreas held a summit at the Demilitarized Zone, where they laid the foundation for a formal end to the Korean War and discussed ways to denuclearize the peninsula.
Reduced US troop levels were not intended to be a bargaining chip in the planned summit in late May or early June about North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme, the Times said. Officials said, however, that a peace treaty between the two Koreas could diminish the need for the 23,500 US soldiers stationed on the peninsula.
The US currently has 28,500 troops stationed in the country, and South Korea, a longtime ally, pays nearly $890 million a year in expenses, or about half the total cost. That deal expires at the end of this year, and Trump hopes to convince Seoul to foot more of the bill.
A full withdrawal of US troops was unlikely, the Times said, citing officials.
But a US National Security Council official told a visiting South Korean official in Washington the report was false, the South Korean presidential office said in a statement.
The White House and Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trump has said the US should consider reducing the number of troops in South Korea unless it shoulders more of the cost.
Former CIA director Mike Pompeo, who is now US secretary of state, met Kim last month and reported the North Korean leader was not demanding the withdrawal of all US forces as a precondition for a summit with Trump.
South Korea said on Wednesday the issue of US troops stationed in the South was unrelated to any future peace treaty with North Korea and that American forces should stay even if such an agreement is signed.
