Korea and U.S. delegates held the second day of ninth Future of the Alliance Policy Initiative talks (FOTA) on Tuesday at a meeting room in the Ministry of Defense, but ended them without reaching a final agreement on the U.S. Yongsan Garrison move, sources said.
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In front of the Defense Ministry building, where the 9th Future of Alliances (FOTA) talks were held, civic groups hold a demonstration Tuesday calling for an all-out review of plans to change the nature of U.S. troops in Korea and transfer the U.S. Yongsan Garrison. /Yonhap
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Afterwards, at a press meeting, Lt. Gen. Kwon An-do, deputy defense minister for policy and also the chief South Korean delegate, said, ˇ°We decided to hold another meeting sometime in the near future, possibly early next month, to further discuss the unresolved matters, such as the size of the land to be exchanged for Yongsan." The two sides have agreed to reduce the number of delegates and meet again to discuss issues concerning the land size and expenditures needed to relocate C41 (command and control units), as they found it difficult to reach a conclusion. U.S. delegates reportedly requested that the Korean government provide 480,000 pyeong of land for the Osan/Pyeongtaek base site, in addition to the 3.12 million pyeong of land already provided, in exchange for returning an additional 11.18 million pyeong of land from U.S. 2nd Infantry Division bases along with the 41.14 pyeong that the United States had already promised to trade.
Korean delegates, however, told the U.S. delegates that because land expansion for U.S. military base is only possible after considering the actual size of U.S. troop reduction, Korea asked to renegotiate the issue after careful examination of materials provided by the U.S. side on facility requirements.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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