The United States and South Korea reached a formal agreement on Friday on a plan to move all American military forces in downtown Seoul, the South Korean capital, to bases south of the city as part of a major realignment of troops on the Korean peninsula, Pentagon officials said. The agreement on the status of about 8,000 United States troops now in Seoul will not reduce their total number in South Korea. Last month, American officials had said about one-third of the 37,000 troops in South Korea would be withdrawn and sent to Iraq.
Before the agreement on Friday, which was reached after several days of talks in Washington this week, the inability to reach a deal on American forces in Seoul had threatened to become a major irritant in the countries' relationship. In advance of this week's talks, senior Pentagon officials had said American and South Korean negotiators were working against a tight deadline to resolve their differences, which mostly focused on the costs of the move and how much land in the south the government in Seoul would make available to the Americans. If an agreement had not been reached and submitted to the South Korean Parliament by this fall, then the American timetable for completing the relocation would have had to have been extended, Pentagon officials said. With Friday's announcement, the relocation of American forces out of Seoul could be completed by December 2008. "This relocation agreement helps us meet our enduring commitment to the defense of Korea and to the security and stability of the region," said Richard Lawless, deputy under secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific affairs, in a statement released by the Pentagon.
Senior Bush administration officials have insisted that plans to reduce the overall number of American troops in South Korea - and to move those remaining on the peninsula far from the range of North Korean rockets and artillery - would not be viewed as a lessening of America's commitment to South Korea's security. The repositioning of troops on the peninsula reflects an assessment that keeping American forces within range of 10,000 artillery pieces and rockets that North Korea keeps along the border presents an inviting target for a first strike, American officials said.
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