US to redeploy its troops in S. Korea to Iraq

The United States wanted to pull someof its 37,000 troops out of South Korea to help operations in Iraq,confirmed a South Korean official on Monday.

The United States has recently notified Seoul of its intention and the two countries have just begun talks on the issue, Kim Sook,chief of the Foreign Ministry's North American Affairs Bureau, wasquoted by South Korean Yonhap News Agency as saying.

The South Korean official stressed the talks are at a "very early stage" and that nothing specific has been decided.

The official also said the issue has nothing to do with Seoul'splan to send 3,000 additional troops to Iraq, rejecting speculation that the US plan is meant to pressure South Korea to act quickly on its troop dispatch promise.

At the request of Washington, Seoul decided to dispatch 3,000 troops to Iraq besides the some 500 non-combatant troops which noware working in the Middle East country. But the plan was delayed for several times because of the deteriorating security situation and the changing of deployment site.

Kim's comments were a response to a newspaper report that about4,000 US troops stationed in South Korea will be redeployed to Iraq within several weeks.

The vernacular daily JoongAng Daily said the US government plans to withdraw a brigade-level force from the 2nd Infantry Division, the most forward-deployed among the 37,000 US troops near the inter-Korean border, and send it to Iraq.

It is unclear whether those troops will return to South Korea after conducting stabilizing operations in Iraq, the paper quoted an unidentified government official as saying.

"We cannot completely rule out the possibility of a brigade-level force leaving the Korean peninsula and not returning," the official was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, the US military here neither confirmed nor denied the plan.

"A number of options are being discussed to help ensure the US meets its obligations to Operation Iraqi Freedom, while ensuring the US also meets its ongoing commitments throughout the Asia Pacific region," said Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, a spokesman for the US military in South Korea.

"When any decision is made on future deployments, we will conduct consultations, notifications and announcements at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner," he said.

The 2nd Infantry Division is stationed in Dongducheon, north ofSeoul. The 14,000-strong frontline force consists of infantry, airborne, artillery and engineering brigades.

Previously, South Korea and the United States agreed to relocate the 2nd Infantry Division from the area near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating South Korea and the DemocraticPeople's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to the southern part of Seoul bythe end of 2007.

The two allies also agreed in principle to move the US Forces Korea (USFK) headquarters in central Seoul out of the capital to another place by the end of 2006.

The United States claimed the relocation of the USFK is the result of its changing strategy in the Asian Pacific region.

Source: Xinhua