South Korea is asking the US to delay plans to slash the number of US troops based on the divided Korean Peninsula during talks that started yesterday on the future of their military cooperation, a government official said.
Washington has notified Seoul of its plans to withdraw 12,500 of about 37,000 US troops stationed in South Korea by the end of next year, forcing South Korea's military to shoulder more responsibility for defending against any military aggression from North Korea.
Some 3,600 Americans have already been sent from South Korea to Iraq.
``We want the United States to delay the plan a little bit more, and we plan to make such request at today's talks,'' a Defense Ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
Local media have reported that Seoul wants the plan to be postponed by more than a year.
US Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Lawless will lead the American delegation during the two-day talks in Seoul.
During talks last month in Washington, US and South Korean officials agreed to move all 8,000 US military personnel currently based in Seoul to another city south of the capital by the end of 2008.
US troops have been stationed here since the 1950-53 Korean War in a bid to deter any possible attack from the North.
The US soldiers, and an additional 650,000 troops from South Korea, remain on a war footing with the North because the war ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, meaning the two Koreas are technically still at war.
The planned US troop reduction is seen as part of Washing-ton's global effort to realign its forces so they can better respond to emergencies worldwide.
Earlier this week, US President George W. Bush announced a plan to withdraw up to 70,000 US troops from Cold War bases in Europe and Asia.
Opposition presidential candidate John Kerry blasted the plan to pullback on the Korean Peninsula, saying it would embolden nuclear-armed North Korea while the international community is seeking to persuade it to give up its nuclear program.
Bush administration officials argue that although the number of US troops in South Korea will decrease, the defense capabilities of the allies won't be weakened.
Also see story:
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
RSS