A top US army officer in South Korea says historic plans to pull back American troops after five decades patrolling the world's last Cold War frontier do not weaken the allies' defense against the communist North.
South Korean officials have voiced concern that shifting the troops away from the frontier could be perceived by North Korea as a weakening of US support for Seoul or as a move to clear the way for a pre-emptive attack on the North.
Washington and Seoul unveiled on Thursday a timetable to remove US forces from the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) -- the stretch of no-man's land dividing the capitalist South from reclusive North Korea.
The two states remain technically at war because the armed truce that ended the 1950-53 Korean conflict never led to a peace treaty.
Some analysts say redeploying front-line units away from the DMZ will allow greater flexibility and reduce the risk of US casualties in a conflict. Others say the move is part of a wider US redeployment worldwide to create a more flexible, less intrusive presence.
The plan has caused anxiety in South Korea because it was unveiled during a crisis over Pyongyang's atomic ambitions.
"We remain committed to the tenets of the 1953 Mutual Defense Pact. We may implement them differently than we have done in the past, but the commitment remains as unequivocal, strong and as enduring as ever," Lieutenant General Charles Campbell, commander of the US 8th Army, told the Korea Times in an interview published yesterday.
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