Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Monday he does not believe a reduction in U.S. troops in South Korea is on the negotiating table as part of President Trump’s summit with Kim Jong Un.
Any drawdown of the roughly 28,500 troops now stationed in the South would have to first be negotiated by Seoul and Washington and no such talks are underway, Mattis told reporters during an impromptu press conference.
“That would be a discussion between two democracies, the Republic of Korea and the United States, and it is a relationship between our leaders and those two countries. That is not something that other countries would have, I would just say, initial domain over a discussion with us,” he said. “It starts between our two countries and that would be premature right now as we wait for the outcome of the negotiations.”
Mattis added that he would be aware if U.S. troop presence was a topic of the discussions, which will take place Monday night Washington time, and Tuesday morning Singapore time.
“Yeah, I sure would,” he said when asked.
Trump is set to meet Kim face to face as part of the historic summit on the North’s nuclear weapons program in Singapore, and Mattis has sent Randall Schriver, the assistant defense secretary for Asian and Pacific security affairs, as his representative with the U.S. delegation.
Schriver’s job is make sure the Pentagon’s military policy is being considered, but Mattis said there has not been “lot of communication back and forth” as the military holds steady.
“This has been diplomatically led all along and so the diplomatic people are in charge. I’ve got the guy embedded from Day One,” he said. “We will all watch and see what the two leaders and our diplomats come out with and obviously I can’t tell you any more right now since the negotiations are in play.”
