The U.S. request came Sunday evening as both sides prepared to open the two-day Future of the Alliance talks, said Kim Sook, head of the South Korean Foreign Ministry's North American bureau.

The U.S. delegation, led by Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Lawless, said Washington wanted to withdraw some 12,500 U.S. troops by December 2005, Kim said. The figure would include about 3,600 already slated to be redeployed this summer from South Korea to Iraq, Kim said.

Kim said officials at the South Korean National Security Council, Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry would review the proposal before giving a response: "We'll formulate a position and then notify the United States."

The withdrawal would be the first major troop cut on the Korean Peninsula since 1992.

South Korean and U.S. official opened formal talks Monday afternoon about repositioning troops on the divided Korean peninsula.

Troop levels are a prickly issue in South Korea, where many still have painful memories of the communist North Korean invasion that triggered the 1950-53 Korean War.

The talks follow a shift in Seoul toward a more liberal government following recent elections and come amid a dispute over North Korea's nuclear weapons development.

Washington has kept troops here since the Korean War, in part to help Seoul deter potential aggression from the North. The Korean War ended without a peace treaty.

The Future of the Alliance talks end Tuesday and are mainly to discuss a U.S. plan to reposition most of its forces currently stationed near the North Korean border to points south of the South Korean capital, Seoul.

The proposal also would transfer about 7,000 U.S. forces and their families from the sprawling Yongsan Base in downtown Seoul to an expanded facility south of the capital by 2006.

A South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman declined to comment on the progress of talks or the U.S. proposal to withdraw 12,500 troops by the end of next year.

But the country's Yonhap news agency quoted an unnamed South Korean official as saying South Korea proposed that the pullout happen gradually through 2013.

The proposed changes - along with anti-American sentiment among many young South Koreans - has triggered concern among some that liberal President Roh Moo-hyun, who recently won a majority in parliament, may be endangering his country's alliance with the United States.

Roh has said his country should assume a greater role in its own defense, but on Sunday he pledged his government would continue to "properly nurture the South Korea-U.S. alliance."

"The concepts of self defense and an alliance can complement each other," he said in a nationally televised speech marking the country's Memorial Day for the war dead.

Washington said earlier this month it plans to redeploy 3,600 South Korea-based troops to Iraq in the coming months. According to Kim, they would be included in the overall troop reduction.

The planned U.S. troop reduction is seen as part of Washington's global effort to realign its forces so they can better respond to emergencies worldwide.

Although the number of U.S. troops in South Korea will decrease, Washington says the allies' defense capabilities will not weaken and has promised to spend US$11 billion in the next five years to upgrade its military firepower in the theater.

The realignment comes amid a regional standoff with North Korea about its nuclear weapons programs. The United States, the two Koreas, China, Russia and Japan are hoping to hold a round of six-nation talks by month's end to discuss the dispute.

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