South Korea said last month that the issue of US troops stationed there was unrelated to any future peace treaty with North Korea and that American forces should stay even if such an agreement were signed.

"South Korea will have mixed feelings toward Trump's remarks,"said Lee Il-woo,a director at Korea Defense Network in Seoul."The country will welcome reducing the military exercises,as it could ease the decades-long tension on the Korean Peninsula. But at the same time it will worry in terms of the possible negative consequences,as the reduction could scare South Koreans."

North Korea has called for an end to the exercises as part of the United States'ending its"hostile policy"toward the country.

China — historically North Korea's closest partner — has also sought a"freeze for freeze"agreement in which the exercises would be suspended in exchange for North Korea's stopping development of its weapons.

The US had rejected such proposals in the past,but North Korea has declared an end to testing its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles,and now Trump appears ready to end exercises while talks are ongoing.

South Korean officials who met Kim this year said the North Korean leader said he understood the need for the training. But as American and South Korean troops continued exercises,North Korean officials lashed out in several statements that led Trump to temporarily call off the summit.

About 28,500 US troops are stationed in South Korea,a legacy of the Korean War,which ended in 1953 in an armistice that left the two Koreas technically still at war.

Concession fears

Given Kim only repeated vague commitments to pursue the"denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula,"some observers questioned whether Trump was making overly drastic concessions.

"I hope — but am not yet confident — that (North Korea) will take steps that match the concessions Mr Trump has already made by ending military exercises in South Korea and granting Mr Kim legitimacy with this summit,"said Thomas Countryman,a former acting under secretary of state for arms control under former president Barack Obama.

"The key question is whether this concession by Mr Trump was coordinated at all with the (South Korean) government,"Countryman said."There has been real concern that he would only look after US interests,not those of our long-standing allies."

He noted,however,that exercises could easily be restarted if needed.

Mitchell Reiss,who served as the US State Department’s director of policy planning from 2003-2005 and earlier negotiated with North Korea on behalf of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO),echoed the idea that it was important to make such decisions hand-in-hand with South Korea.

"My first question is whether our allies,the South Koreans,were consulted in advance of suspending these military exercises,"he said.

"My second question is,what did we receive in return for this concession?"

Reuters