South Korea Could Boost Defense Spending on Request of US

South Korean authorities could agree with potential demands of new US presidential administration to increase Seoul's share in military spending on deployment of US servicemen in the Asian country, Chang Myoung-jin, head of South Korea's Defense Acquisition Program Administration said Tuesday.

TOKYO (Sputnik) — During the presidential campaign, US President-elect Donald Trump said about the necessity to make South Korea increase share of cost spent on deployment of some 28,000 US troops in the country.

"My basic thought about that is just that if, and this may be a big if, President-elect Trump and his administration, when it comes to the alliance with ROK [Republic of Korea], of course the campaign's rhetoric has been toward that direction, and if there is a huge demand for more burden on the part of the ROK, I think Korea will inevitably have to embrace that," Chang said, as quoted by The Korea Times newspaper.

He added that it was also necessary to increase spending on upgrade of country's military capabilities, particularly weapons systems, in order to tackle threats posed by North Korea.

Trump, who won a victory in the US presidential vote on November 8, during his election campaign has pledged to make countries such as Japan, Germany and South Korea pay for their alliance with the United States and their protection by the US troops present on their territories.