Esper backs delay of drills

SEOUL, South Korea — U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Thursday that he does not regret postponing a U.S.-South Korean military exercise, even though the gesture was rejected by North Korea as not enough to restart nuclear diplomacy.

The prospects for a resumption of the nuclear diplomacy are unclear, with Pyongyang stepping up its pressures on Washington to make bigger concessions. On Wednesday, the North’s first vice foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, repeated that it won’t return to a negotiating table unless the United States drops its hostile policy against the North.

“We can discuss the nuclear issue with the U.S. only when it withdraws all its hostile policies against [North Korea],” Choe told reporters during a visit to Moscow, according to South Korean media footage. “In that sense, I think a summit or leaders’ talks [between North Korea and the U.S.] isn’t an interesting issue for us.”

The U.S. and South Korea announced Sunday that they indefinitely postponed the annual Vigilant Ace aerial training as part of efforts to revive the nuclear talks, as North Korea has called the training an invasion rehearsal. In response, senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol said Tuesday that the U.S. must scrap that military drill completely and abandon its hostility against his country if it wants to see the resumption of the nuclear negotiations.

North Korea wants the U.S. to lift major international sanctions on it and provide security assurances before it fully abandons its nuclear arsenal. But the U.S. has maintained sanctions would stay in place until North Korea takes serious steps toward denuclearization.

Before boarding his plane in Hanoi, Vietnam, for a flight to Washington, Esper described North Korea’s response to the drill’s postponement as being “not as positive as we would have liked.” In Esper’s words: “I don’t regret taking the high road.”

Esper also said he does not believe there is a rift in the U.S.-South Korean alliance, despite a breakdown this week in negotiations over a U.S. demand for a fivefold increase in what Seoul pays to keep 28,500 American troops on its soil.

The Pentagon also denied a report in South Korea’s biggest newspaper that the U.S. was considering withdrawing some troops if Seoul didn’t agree to that increase. There was “absolutely no truth” to the Chosun Ilbo report, said chief Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman, who noted that Esper “repeatedly reiterated our ironclad commitment” to South Korea during his talks with South Korean officials. “We’re not threatening allies over this,” Esper said in Hanoi.

The current cost-sharing agreement reached earlier this year expires at the end of 2019. South Korea’s Defense Ministry said that despite the latest acrimony, the U.S. has vowed in its latest meeting that its forces would stay.

President Donald Trump has demanded South Korea contribute about $5 billion for hosting U.S. troops, well above the current one-year deal where Seoul pays about $1 billion. The price tag originated with the White House, according to people familiar with the matter, and administration officials justify it by saying it reflects the costs South Korea would incur if it takes operational control of combined U.S.-South Korean forces in the case of a conflict.

A U.S.-led diplomacy aimed at ridding North Korea of its nuclear weapons has largely been deadlocked since the February collapse of a summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Kim has demanded the U.S. come up with new, acceptable measures to salvage the nuclear talks by year’s end.