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Instead, Seoul plans to focus on its summit with the North, likely to take place as early as this spring, on addressing U.S. concerns about Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons drive.
The diplomatic game has emerged as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell is travelling to Seoul to discuss the security alliance with South Korea and coordinate the two countries’ policy toward North Korea.
South Korea conveyed to Campbell its hope of holding talks with the United States to review a 2007 agreement on Seoul's regaining of wartime operational control of its troops from Washington, according to diplomatic sources here on Thursday.
South Korea voluntarily put operational control of its military under the U.S.-led United Nations Command shortly after the Korean War broke out in 1950. It took back peacetime operational control in 1994.
Under the 2007 accord, the United States has agreed to hand wartime operational command of South Korean troops back to Seoul by April 2012. The deal was pushed by the former maverick President Roh Moo-hyun, who wanted to reduce the country's military dependence on the United States.
But his conservative successor President Lee Myung-bak ,who took office in early 2008, has campaigned to restore the security alliance with Washington, standing firmer against North Korea, which conducted a second nuclear test and a set of missile launches last year.
Security jitters here further mounted at the beginning of this year as the North's military fired hundreds of artillery shells near the inter-Korean maritime border over three days last week. The Stalinist country is expected to conduct further artillery fire or short-range missile tests, as it has designated "naval firing zones" along the sea border until next Monday.
In the face of the increased security threat from their communist neighbor, more South Koreans want U.S. military protection extended.
Meeting with Campbell, Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Yong-joon called for closer military ties to cope with the North's threats. "We discussed security cooperation issues (with Campbell), including American troops stationed in South Korea and the planned transfer of wartime operational control," Lee told reporters at the end of the meeting.
In response, Campbell said his government was seriously considering concerns in South Korea and was willing to closely discuss the transfer issue.
"I think we would very much like to make sure the United States and South Korea are as close as possible on all issues associated with the six-party engagement, our mutual strategy toward North Korea," he told reporters.
The United States had maintained nearly 40,000 troops in South Korea, alongside the South's 670,000 troops, facing off against the North's 1.2 million-strong armed forces.
But it recently reduced the number to 28,500 and is planning to redeploy the frontline U.S. ground forces to south of Seoul, in one of the biggest realignments of U.S. forces in this country since the Korean War.
Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Defense said in the newest edition of its Quadrennial Defense Review that Washington would further cut troops in the South, saying U.S. troops in Seoul could possibly be relocated abroad under the concept of "strategic flexibility."
But the U.S. military said on Thursday that it has no immediate plan to redeploy troops from South Korea. In a statement, the command of the U.S. Forces Korea said a redeployment of its troops, even if necessary, would only be possible in the late 2010s after close consultations with South Korea.
"The defense of the ROK (South Korea) remains the core mission of U.S. forces in Korea now and in the future, and there will be no reduction of U.S. forces in Korea tied to wartime operational control transition on April 17, 2012," it said.
In return for longer U.S. military protection, South Korea has vowed to use an inter-Korean summit it is pushing to hold this year to persuade the North to give up its nuclear weapons.
"Denuclearization of the peninsula must be the most important agenda item if an inter-Korean summit takes place," a Foreign Ministry official said. "A summit should be arranged as a way to address international concerns about the North's nuclear weapons," he said.
In an apparent bid to coordinate summit agenda items with White House officials, Kim Tae-hyo, secretary to President Lee for national security strategy, is visiting Washington this week.
