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| Ambassador Eun-bo Chung and US Representative Donna Welton (provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) are negotiating the defense cost share © News1 |
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on the 8th that as a result of the negotiations between Korea and the US, the two sides reached an agreement in principle.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs explained in a press release on the day that “the two sides plan to make an announcement and go ahead after completing the internal reporting process.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasized that “the government will contribute to reinforcing the ROK-US alliance and the combined defense posture, which is a key axis of peace and prosperity in the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia, through the conclusion of an agreement as soon as possible.”
The 11th ROK-US Special Agreement on Defense Cost Sharing (SMA) was held in Washington DC, USA from the 5th (local time) to the 7th.
On the Korean side, Korea-US Defense Sharing Negotiations Ambassador Chung Eun-bo, and on the US side, Donna Welton, the Defense Expenses Sharing Negotiation Representative (Senior Assistant of the Political and Military Bureau) attended the meeting as chief representative.
This meeting was held face-to-face after a year in the context of a novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19).
The 11th SMA, which should have been applied from the beginning of last year, fell into a deadlock when the US President Donald Trump rejected the ‘13% increase’ tentatively agreed upon by the two negotiating teams. At the time, he demanded a’five times increase’.
The ‘13% increase plan’ is to increase our defense cost share in 2020 by 13% from 1.38.9 trillion won in 2019.
Considering that the two sides of the ROK and the United States have passed the deadline for negotiating the 2020 defense cost share, unlike the 2019 SMA, which was a one-year long, there are observations that there is a high possibility of signing a multi-year agreement for up to five years this time.
It is likely that the details of the agreement and the procedure for naming the agreement will be disclosed on the occasion of US Secretary of State Tony Blincoln and Secretary of Defense Austin’s visit to Korea. Both sides are adjusting the schedule for their visit to Korea from the 17th to the 18th.