한미방위비 협상대표 비공개 회동..."새 협상 사전협의"<br /><br />South Korea and the U.S. will soon start negotiating how to share the cost of stationing American troops here.<br />President Trump wants Seoul to pay a lot more.<br />Ahead of that, the two sides held a preliminary meeting yesterday.<br />Kan Hyeong-woo has more.<br />The heads of the previous round of South Korea-U.S. defense cost sharing negotiations, Chang Won-sam and Timothy Betts, held a closed-door meeting in Seoul on Tuesday.<br />The sit-down was a pre-consultation ahead of the next round of talks for splitting the cost of keeping the roughly 28-thousand American troops stationed on the Korean Peninsula.<br />"We're aware that a pre-consultation took place between the chief negotiators on defense cost sharing. We'll let you know the specific result if there's something we need to tell you."<br />Although not many details have been released about Tuesday's closed door meeting,... the focus is on how much more the U.S. is asking South Korea to stump up.<br />Earlier this month,...President Trump said talks to increase South Korea's contribution had begun and Seoul had already agreed to pay the amount requested.<br />"South Korea and I have made a deal where they're paying a lot more money and they're going to pay a lot more money. The relationship is a very good one."<br />But Seoul's foreign ministry swiftly responded, saying official negotiations for the 11th round of the Special Measures Agreement have not started yet.<br />According to a ministry official,... both sides agree that negotiations need to begin as soon as possible with the current deal set to expire at the end of this year.<br />In March, Seoul signed its 10th SMA with Washington.... agreeing to pay some 850-million U.S. dollars in 2019 for its share of stationing U.S. troops on the peninsula - a roughly eight percent increase from the previous year.<br />Kan Hyeong-woo, Arirang News.<br />
