South Korea has recently launched a new task force to prepare for its upcoming negotiations with the United States over the issue of dividing up the costs of American military forces stationed here against North Korea.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs "started the operation of the TF for South Korea-US defense cost sharing in order to prepare for the upcoming negotiation," ministry spokesman Noh Kyu-duk said in a press briefing on Tuesday.

The ministry has recently appointed Chang Won-sam, the sitting ambassador to Sri Lanka, as the next chief negotiator on defense cost sharing vis a vis the US as the allies are set to sit together to negotiate how to share the costs of stationing 28,500 American troops in South Korea.

The allies have both been shouldering the costs since 1990 by renewing a negotiated bill about every five years. Their latest five-year agreement, signed in January 2014, is set to terminate at the end of 2018.

"This TF consists of the chief and vice government negotiators for defense cost sharing as well as working-level staff from the foreign and defense ministries," the spokesman said.

The next agreement is likely to follow unusually heated negotiations after President Donald Trump has urged South Korea to share a bigger burden and the US deployed an expensive missile interceptor system, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, in South Korea at its costs. (Yonhap)