The United States and South Korea have reached agreement in
principle on a new arrangement for sharing the cost of the American troop
presence, which is intended as a bulwark against the threat of North Korean
aggression, both countries announced.
The State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs
said Sunday the deal includes a “negotiated increase” in Seoul’s share of the
cost, but it provided no details. The Bureau wrote on Twitter that the
agreement, if finalized, would reaffirm the US-South Korean treaty alliance as
“the linchpin of peace, security and prosperity for Northeast Asia.”
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry on Monday issued a similar
statement, saying the two countries are seeking to tentatively sign the deal.
It said the agreement came after three days of face-to-face talks in
Washington.
The US. keeps about 28,000 troops in South Korea to help
deter potential aggression from North Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War.
But how much South Korea should pay for the American military presence was a
thorny issue in bilateral relations under the Trump administration, which often
asked its Asian ally to drastically increase its share.
In 2019, the allies struck a deal that required South Korea
to pay about $924 million (1.04 trillion won) for the US. troops presence, an
increase from $830 million in the previous year. But negotiations for a new
cost-sharing plan broke down over a US. demand that Seoul pay five times what it
previously had paid.
The State Department said in a statement that the increase
in the South’s share of the cost was “meaningful” but was not more specific.
The Wall Street Journal, which was first to report the
agreement, said it would last through 2025. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said
it couldn’t immediately confirm the report.
In its statement, the State Department said: “America’s
alliances are a tremendous source of our strength. This development reflects
the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to reinvigorating and modernizing
our democratic alliances around the word to advance our shared security and
prosperity.”
Many conservatives in South Korea worried that
then-President Donald Trump might use failed cost-sharing negotiations as an
excuse to withdraw some US. troops in South Korea as a bargaining chip in
now-stalled nuclear talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The US. and
South Korea had also halted or cancelled some of their military exercises in
recent years to support the nuclear diplomacy, which eventually fell apart due
to disputes over US.-led sanctions on North Korea.
On Monday, the South Korea and US militaries kicked off
annual military drills that would last for nine days. South Korea’s military
said the drills are command post exercises and computerized simulation and
don’t involve field training. It said the allies reviewed factors like the
status of COVID-19 and diplomatic efforts to resume the nuclear talks with
North Korea when it decided to hold the drills.
It’s unclear how North Korea would respond to the drills. In
the past, the North often called regular US.-South Korea drills an invasion
rehearsal and responded with missile tests. Lee Jong-joo, South Korea’s
Unification Ministry spokeswoman, said Monday that Seoul hopes Pyongyang would
act flexibly and wisely in response to its efforts to promote peace on the
Korean Peninsula.
The prospect for a new cost-sharing plan has been heightened
as the Biden administration has been seeking to bolster its alliance with South
Korean and other countries.
South Korea began paying for the US military deployment in
the early 1990s, after rebuilding its economy from the devastation of the
Korean War. The big US military presence in South Korea is a symbol of the
countries’ alliance but also a source of long-running anti-American sentiments.
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