General News
10/26/2009 6:32 AM ET
(RTTNews) -
The top U.S. military commander says discussion are on with South Korea--a key ally of the U.S. in Asia--on the possibility of redeploying some American troops from the Asian nation to war-torn Afghanistan after they re-adjust their South Korean tours.
"Certainly, that's something that we are looking very specifically at. And, in fact, there have been forces that were here that went to Iraq," Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), said, apparently referring to the thousands of U.S. troops that were sent from the 2nd Infantry Division in South Korea to Iraq in 2004 to boost U.S. operations there.
Mullen, who was in South Korea last week, accompanying Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and attending annual security meetings between the two countries, however pointed out that no decision in this regard had been taken.
Concern that gets raised with respect to rotating forces out of South Korea is that it "lessens the commitment to the alliance and Republic of Korea, and nothing could be further from the truth," he said, according to a transcript of his October 22 speech to a group of soldiers in South Korea now available on the JCS website.
According to Mullen, about 14,000 U.S. troops in South Korea will be stationed with their families on two and three-year tours in seven to nine years under a tour normalization policy announced last year. U.S. troops have traditionally come to South Korea on one-year tours.
Meanwhile, South Korea's Defence Ministry denied holding talks with its U.S. counterpart on the potential deployment, which would mark the second time for U.S. troops here to be sent to the Middle East. A spokesperson said Admiral Mullen may have been speaking in "technical terms."
The U.S. has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea to bolster the latter's 655,000-strong armed forces as a deterrent to the North's 1.2 million-member military--a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty.
by RTT Staff Writer
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