South Korea's government moved to calm security fears here Tuesday as Washington confirmed plans to re-deploy some 3,600 US troops from the tense border with North Korea to Iraq.
US and South Korean officials said the reduction in troop numbers would not weaken the ability of US forces based in South Korea for more than 50 years to deter Stalinist North Korea.
Air defences will be reinforced and more long-range US bombers will be deployed to the region, Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon said.
"I am convinced that there will be no security vacuum and the troop withdrawal will not lead to a weakening alliance between South Korea and the United States. The US will take supplementary measures," Ban told journalists here.
New military hardware including missiles and military jets would be deployed here under a US plan announced last year to invest 11 billion dollars in the defence of South Korea in coming years, he said.
The first pullout of US troops from South Korea since the early 1990s comes as the allies grapple with the 19-month-old stand-off over North Korea's nuclear weapons drive.
North Korea which has the world's fifth largest army of 1.1 million troops has consistently demanded the withdrawal of all US troops from South Korea, which has a 700,000-strong military.
Washington says the pullout will help reinforce its hard-pressed military in Iraq and is part of a global realignment of US forces advocated by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that has been under discussion with South Korea and Japan for over a year.
The transfer of troops to Iraq will result in "no diminution of capabilities either in the region or on the Korean peninsula," the Pentagon said.
President George W. Bush discussed the plans on Monday with South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, both of whom expressed their "support and understanding," the White House said.
The pullout is expected to take place around the middle of the year and will affect 3,600 troops from the 2nd Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division, based near the highly-fortified border with North Korea.
The withdrawal will cut US troop numbers here from 37,000 to around 34,000 and it was uncertain whether the brigade would return at a later date.
"The issue requires further discussions between South Korea and the United States," Foreign Minister Ban said.
Ban flatly denied as "groundless" speculation that the withdrawal might be linked to South Korea delaying its planned dispatch of more than 3,000 troops to Iraq in support of the US-led coalition.
"The dispatch of troops is a promise we have made before the international community," he said, adding that the plan would go ahead and was not affected by the US troop redeployment.
The 2nd Infantry division is deployed near the Demilitarised Zone that has divided the two Koreas since the Korean War that ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty.
The combat-ready division straddles the main invasion route from the border to Seoul used by North Korean forces more than five decades ago.
Rumsfeld visited the division during his stay in South Korea in November last year.
Newspaper editorials expressed concern that the troop pullout could damage investor confidence in South Korea and hurt its fledgling economic recovery. Worries about the health of the US-South Korea alliance also surfaced.
The dispatch of the troops to Iraq promised by the government of President Roh Moo-Hyun several months ago has been repeatedly delayed. It is still facing opposition from the public and in parliament.
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