Trump 'orders options for troop reduction' in South Korea

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The US defense department has been ordered to prepare options for reducing the number of US troops in South Korea, local media reported on Thursday, as South Korean national security adviser Chung Eui-yong traveled to Washington to meet US officials.

Reduced US troop levels are not intended to be a bargaining chip in Trump's planned summit in late May or early June with Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) leader Kim Jong Un about Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program, the New York Times said, citing several people briefed on the deliberations.

US soldiers stand guard during a joint medical evacuation exercise at a South Korean Army hospital in Goyang, northwest of Seoul, March 14, 2017. /VCG Photo

The officials told the newspaper that though a full withdrawal was unlikely, a peace treaty between Seoul and Pyongyang could diminish the need for the 28,500 US soldiers currently stationed on the Korean Peninsula.

However, a US National Security Council official told a visiting South Korean official the report was false, the South Korean presidential office said in a statement.

Trump has previously said the US should consider reducing the number of troops in South Korea unless Seoul shoulders more of the cost. South Korea said on Wednesday the issue of US troops stationed in the south was unrelated to any future peace treaty and that American forces should stay even if such an agreement is signed.

ROK official in US

South Korean national security adviser Chung Eui-yong is in the US to hold talks with counterpart John Bolton, officials in Seoul and Washington told Reuters on Friday.

An unidentified Blue House official told local reporters that Chung made a closed-door visit to the US at the request of the White House to discuss the proposed DPRK-US summit.

South Korea's national security adviser Chung Eui-yong at Incheon International Airport, South Korea, March 15, 2018. /VCG Photo

The visit was not publicized beforehand at the request of the US side, according to a Blue House official.

Among issues to be decided before Trump can meet Kim are where and when they will hold their summit. Trump has suggested holding the meeting, which is expected in late May or early June, at the border village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas.

This would require close coordination with Seoul, although officials in the South Korean president's office have said there have been no official requests to prepare the venue for the summit.

Chung's visit came a week after South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Kim held the third-ever inter-Korean summit at Panmunjom. Days before the Moon-Kim summit, Chung visited Washington.

Moon and Kim agreed to complete denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula and to turn the current armistice agreement between the countries into a peace treaty by the end of this year.

(With input from agencies)