South Korea vows to keep US troops even if deal to end war reached

SEOUL, South Korea -- U.S. troops will remain in South Korea regardless of any peace treaty with the North, Seoul’s presidential office said today.

“U.S. armed forces in Korea is an issue between South Korea and United States alliance,” spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told reporters today on behalf of South Korean President Moon Jae In. “[Their presence] has nothing to do with signing peace treaties.”

His pronouncement was in response to an article in the U.S.-based magazine Foreign Affairs in which Moon Chung-in, a special adviser to President Moon, wrote, “it would be difficult for U.S. forces in South Korea to justify their presence after a peace treaty [between North and South Korea] is signed.”

The article by the international relations expert, published Monday, led to domestic political turmoil, with the government’s opposition parties casting doubt on the adviser’s qualifications and the main opposing party even calling for his dismissal.

North Korea had demanded for decades that the United States withdraw its thousands of troops from South Korea as a precondition to any negotiations on a peace treaty. Pyongyang had claimed the presence of U.S. military power in the South threatened its national security.

But in a surprise move, Pyongyang recently stepped back on those preconditions, making way for last Friday’s North-South Korea summit.