US military forces in South Korea are not subject to negotiations between North Korea and the US, because they are a matter for the US-South Korean alliance, a senior official in South Korea’s presidential office said yesterday.
US President Donald Trump said after his historic summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Tuesday that he would stop “expensive, provocative” war games with the South.
About 28,500 US troops are stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-1953 Korean War, which ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty that left the two Koreas technically still at war.
“Let me be clear. There has been no discussions and no change in position on the matter of the issue of US troops in South Korea,” said the high-level South Korean official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
There had been discussions between North Korea and the US before Tuesday’s summit about completing an “early” denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, the official said, but did not elaborate.
The US-North Korea summit “jump-started” stalled negotiations for denuclearization and hoped South Korea would contribute to speeding up the process, the official said.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has been charged by Trump with leading follow-up negotiations, said the US hoped to achieve “major disarmament” by North Korea within the next two-and-a-half years.
Tough sanctions would remain on North Korea until its complete denuclearization, Pompeo said, apparently contradicting the North’s view that the process agreed at this week’s summit would be phased and reciprocal.
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