Trump Tells Pentagon to Consider Reducing US Forces in South Korea – Reports
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - US President Donald Trump has told the Pentagon to consider options for troop reductions in South Korea, media said, referring to officials familiar with the matter.
This comes a week after North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un met with President Moon Jae-in of South Korea for a rare summit where they pledged to sign a peace treaty this year. The two countries have technically been at war since 1953.
The New York Times newspaper said its sources had admitted that a peace deal would diminish the need for the United States to keep a 28,500-strong force in the peninsula, after President Trump complained about the cost of protecting South Korea and Japan.
The US president is expected to sit down with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un for historic talks in the coming weeks, which are aimed at ridding the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons.
Earlier, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said that the presence of US forces in South Korea was "a matter for the South Korea-US alliance," dismissing the possibility of withdrawing US troops stationed in the country in the event of signing a peace treaty with North Korea, which would formally put an end to the 1950-1953 Korean War.
- Source : Sputnik
