Washington and Seoul agreed Thursday to withdraw most of the 37,000 US troops from the Demilitarized Zone to bases further south in one of the biggest realignments of forces there since the Korean War.

"We recognize we have a new security environment and as such we have a new national security strategy" that "requires a solid review worldwide of where our forces are deployed and stationed," US Pacific Command chief Admiral Thomas Fargo said.

"All of these discussions that are ongoing will be done with close collaboration with our allies and friends, and many of those are in progress right now," he said without elaborating.

Many governments in the region consider Fargo's command of nearly 100,000 troops, headquartered in Hawaii but with a major forward presence in Japan and South Korea, as contributing to the stability of Asia.

Some press reports have suggested that the Pentagon planned to drastically cut the number of its forces based in Okinawa in southern Japan.

"I know you've all seen a number of stories in different newspapers, many of which in my view were way off the mark," Fargo said at a joint news conference with Philippine armed forces chief General Narciso Abaya.

In a visit to Malaysia earlier this week, Fargo said Washington had no plans to reopen military bases in Southeast Asia. The Philippines hosted thousands of US troops at two major military facilities until 1992.

Small numbers of US Special Forces troops are deployed in the southern Philippines to train Filipino troops going after the Abu Sayyaf, an armed Muslim groups that both governments consider a terrorist organization, but the Americans are not directly engaged in combat.

Fargo and Abaya acknowledged "the reality of a changed security environment since September 11, 2001," in a joint statement, adding that "new and emerging security challenges will require innovative, flexible and cooperative approaches to mutual security."

Fargo said this Pacific command review and the redeployment in the Korean peninsula recognized a new security environment following the end of the Cold War and the increased threat of international terrorism after the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington.

The Korean redeployment reflects the "dramatic improvements" in the capability of Seoul's military, as well as those of the US forces, he said.

WAR.WIRE