U.S. to Pull Troops Out of Seoul

In a deployment viewed by many South Koreans as an end to the symbolic occupation of their capital, the United States will move all but about 50 of its 7,000 military personnel out of Seoul by the end of 2007, U.S. and South Korean officials said Saturday.

The agreement was announced late Friday after talks in Hawaii on modernizing the U.S.-South Korean military alliance. The troops have been headquartered at the Yongsan garrison in the center of Seoul since the 1950s. Their new home will be in a less intrusive location in Pyongtaek, 36 miles south of the capital.

“Empty of Foreign Troops for the First Time Since 1882,” crowed the South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo, referring to Yongsan, which previously housed Japanese and Chinese troops.

The Yongsan base, which sprawls over 833 acres, was once at the southern edge of Seoul. But since the economic boom of the 1960s, Seoul has mushroomed into a metropolis of 10.4 million that has developed around what many consider a foreign irritant. These South Koreans believe it doesn’t befit the world’s 12th-largest economy to have the U.S. military in its capital, and they tend to blame the base for urban ills ranging from prostitution to traffic.

Anti-American demonstrations are a regular occurrence outside the military base. In the latest of a number of legal cases that have strained relations, a South Korean court this month ordered the chief officer at the base’s morgue to serve six months in prison for dumping embalming fluid down the drain in violation of environment regulations. The sentence is being appealed.

“We feel the move from Yongsan will reduce our intrusive presence in the capital while enhancing our capabilities,” said Maj. Guillermo Canedo, a spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Command in Honolulu. He noted that the redeployment is only one part of an ongoing series of talks about modernizing an alliance that dates to the United States’ intervention on Seoul’s behalf against Communist North Korea in the 1950-1953 Korean War. The United States keeps 37,000 troops in South Korea.

Lt. Gen. Cha Young Koo, South Korean assistant defense minister for policy, also applauded the move.

“It meets the expectations of the South Korean people. It contributes to the development of Seoul and reduces the inconvenience to Seoul residents and will help to reduce anti-American sentiments,” Cha said at a news conference Friday in Honolulu.

Initially, the South Koreans hoped the U.S. would leave at least 1,000 military personnel in Seoul. But South Korea was unwilling to allow the U.S. to keep enough land to maintain a presence that size in the capital.

When the move is completed, the U.S. military will retain only about 20 acres of the site and 50 to 100 staff members to act as liaisons with the South Korean Defense Ministry.

In addition to military personnel, nearly 10,000 Americans -- civilian Defense Department staffers and contractors -- work at or near Yongsan.

Within the South Korean government, the Yongsan move has been a contentious issue. The resignation under pressure of the foreign minister last week came about at least in part because members of the Foreign Ministry wanted to be more accommodating to the Pentagon about how much land the United States could retain.

But South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun took the position that the base should move.

“There are people, including some government officials, who want to keep the Yongsan base as it is now, but this is an old idea,” Roh was reported as having told South Korean journalists at a meeting last week.

Under an earlier agreement, South Korea promised to pick up the costs, estimated at $3 billion, of moving the U.S. base out of Seoul.

The Pentagon also promised last year to invest $11 billion in new military hardware for South Korea to ensure that the move isn’t seen as a sign of weakening defense capabilities at a time when North Korea is pressing ahead with its nuclear weapons program. The United States also plans to eventually shift its troops south, away from the demilitarized zone separating the Koreas. Such a move would make them less vulnerable in case of a North Korean attack.

The changes are part of a Pentagon overhaul designed to make troops in the Pacific more flexible and deployable.