a critical week for South Korea and its alliance with the US and relations with
Japan this week a series of high-level South korea-us defense and security
talks are starting to wrap up with a third round of Defense cost-sharing
talks concluding today and the lumin termination of a military Intel sharing
pact with Japan set for later this week a key moment for Seoul Washington Tokyo
ties let's take one step further now joining me live in from Washington and
via Skype is Scott Snyder senior researcher at the Council on Foreign
Relations Scott our great to see you this morning
yeah good to be with you again there's Scott Key US military officials have
been visited so back to back for the last week including the defense
secretary the US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman and the top US negotiator in
defense cost-sharing talks he's in currently in Seoul right now what kind
of a message in your view are they carrying to the Seoul government well of
course a lot of this activity is about the Alliance about the security
consultation meetings but I think that the issues that are getting the greatest
focus are the cost sharing talks as you mentioned ongoing and also the apparent
South Korean decision to withdraw from the intelligence sharing agreement
between South Korea and Japan right so first let's talk about South Korea's
decision not to renew the military Intel sharing pact with Japan no despite mark
experts meeting with his South Korean counterpart and his meetings with South
Korean president Washington has failed to I guess convince Seoul to renege on
its decision what is the u.s. stand on this and and more importantly what are
the ramifications of Seoul's decision to terminate this pact well I think the
United States has publicly repeatedly expressed its view that South Korea
should remain in the intelligence sharing agreement I think the reason for
that is that the United States is opposed to steps
by either the government of South Korea or the government of Japan that would
undermine the indivisibility of security between South Korea and Japan I think
that the G Sonia PAC has become seen as a symbolic representation of the fact
that the u.s. views South Korea's and Japan's security as
indivisible from each other and on to the defense cost sharing pact officials
from Seoul and Washington wrap up their third round of talks today they've been
trying to narrow a four billion dollar gap and how much the US wants South
Korea to pay for the cost of hosting US troops here reports of trumps a five
billion dollar demand earlier this month were greeted with shock and soul what's
the u.s. argument in this negotiations and how do you think so should go about
negotiating the terms so my understanding is that the US negotiators
are bringing with them a new formula for calculating cost-sharing
it involves elements that have not been a part of Prior cost-sharing
negotiations including asking South Korea to bear costs for troops
operations and equipment that may not be located on the peninsula I'm sure that
South Korea also probably if the formula is going to be revised South Korea may
also have its own items that it would like to include as part of that
calculation and you're absolutely correct that the gap is very large and I
think that actually we haven't seen the public rationale for the five billion
dollar or four point seven billion dollar price tag and so it's hard to
evaluate at this time but I think that it's also hard without knowing how those
items are being valued to justify that level of request now last but not least
Scott is there a possibility that the US will use a South Korea's termination of
dish somya to to their advantage in negotiating a better deal for them in
the defense cost-sharing talks
I do not see a way that the G Samia decision can be used to the u.s.
advantage but I do believe that it is possible that the decision could result
in a hardening of the u.s. position and make it more difficult to resolve the
cost-sharing issue all right Scott Snyder senior researcher at Washington
based Council on Foreign Relations are always go-to expert on South korea-us
relations many things as always for your insights this morning thank you so much