WASHINGTON (AP) – The United States and South Korea have reached an agreement in principle on a new agreement to share the cost of the presence of US troops, which aims to be a bulwark against the threat of US aggression. Korean, the two countries announced.
The State Department’s Office of Political-Military Affairs said Sunday that the deal includes a “negotiated increase” in the Seoul’s cost share, but did not provide any details. The Office wrote on Twitter that the deal, if finalized, would reaffirm the treaty alliance between the United States and South Korea as “the basis of peace, security and prosperity in Northeast Asia.”
The South Korean Foreign Ministry issued a similar statement on Monday, in which it states that the two countries want to sign the agreement provisionally. He said the deal came after three days of face-to-face talks in Washington.
The United States maintains about 28,000 troops in South Korea to help deter possible aggressions by North Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War. But how much South Korea would have to pay for the U.S. military presence was a thorny issue in bilateral relations under the Trump administration, which often asked its Asian ally to drastically increase its quota.
In 2019, the Allies reached an agreement that forced South Korea to pay about $ 924 million (1.04 trillion won) for the presence of US troops, an increase from $ 830 million in previous year. But negotiations for a new cost-sharing plan were broken by the U.S. demand that Seoul pay five times what it had previously paid.
The State Department said in a statement that the increase in the southern share of the cost was “significant,” but was not more specific.
The Wall Street Journal, which was the first to report on the deal, said it would last until 2025. South Korea’s foreign ministry said it could not confirm the report immediately.
In its statement, the State Department said, “America’s alliances are a huge source of our strength. This development reflects the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to invigorate and modernize our democratic alliances around of the word to advance our shared security and prosperity “.
Many South Korean conservatives worried that then-President Donald Trump could use failed cost-sharing negotiations as an excuse to withdraw some U.S. troops in South Korea as a bargaining chip in the now-blocked nuclear talks. with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The United States and South Korea had also halted or canceled some of their military exercises in recent years to support nuclear diplomacy, which eventually collapsed due to disputes over U.S.-led sanctions on North Korea. North.
On Monday, the South Korean and U.S. military began annual military exercises that would last nine days. The South Korean military said the exercises are exercises at the command post and computer simulation and do not involve field training. He said the Allies reviewed factors such as the state of COVID-19 and diplomatic efforts to resume nuclear talks with North Korea when it decided to hold the exercises.
It is unclear how North Korea would respond to the exercises. In the past, the North often called regular US-South Korean tests to do an invasion test and responded with missile tests. Lee Jong-joo, a spokesman for South Korea’s Unification Ministry, said Monday that Seoul expects Pyongyang to act flexibly and wisely in response to its efforts to promote peace on the Korean peninsula.
The prospect of a new cost-sharing plan has intensified as the Biden administration has sought to strengthen its alliance with South Korea and other countries.
South Korea began to pay for U.S. military deployment in the early 1990s, after rebuilding its economy from the devastation of the Korean War. The large U.S. military presence in South Korea is a symbol of the alliance of countries, but also a source of long-standing anti-American sentiments.
___
Associated Press writer Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.