South Korea wants U.S. troops to continue to stay on the Korean peninsula to play a peacekeeping role in Northeast Asia after the divided Koreas replace the armistice with a peace agreement, Foreign Minister Song Min-soon said Friday.

"The U.S. forces in Korea will maintain their presence on the Korean Peninsula even after a peace agreement is signed and continue to carry out a role that would serve the changed security needs in Northeast Asia," Song told a seminar here on the "Vision and Tasks for Establishing a Peace Regime on the Korean Peninsula."

Washington currently maintains some 30,000 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War. The two Koreas technically remain in a state of war as the fratricidal war ended only with a ceasefire.

President Roh Moo-hyun and his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-il agreed earlier this month to begin negotiations involving one or two other "directly involved nations," namely the two Koreas, the United States and/or China, to officially end the war.

The talks to replace the Korean armistice with a peace regime have yet to start, but Song claimed what he called a "practical process" to that end has already started though a more formal process to sign a peace pact may come some time later.

While noting the denuclearization of North Korea is a prerequisite to signing a peace agreement with the communist state, Song said the process to denuclearize the North, thereby toward a peace regime, "is already moving forward."

North Korea has shut down five nuclear facilities under an aid-for-denuclearization deal signed in February, which also binds it to disable the nuclear plants and declare all its nuclear programs by the end of the year.

Song said North Korea will start taking "actual steps" early next month to complete the disablement and declaration phase.

Pyongyang earlier this month agreed to complete the disablement and declaration phase by year's end on condition that the other parties of the multilateral nuclear talks provide energy aid and the U.S. lifts the North from the lists of state sponsors of terrorism and trade embargo imposed on the North for the past decades.

Alexander Vershbow, the top U.S. envoy to South Korea, meanwhile, said the negotiations to replace the Korean armistice could start shortly after Pyongyang completes implementing its denuclearization commitments. He, however, said additional denuclearization commitments by North Korea would be needed to conclude the peace negotiations.

"For peace regime discussions to move forward, The U.S. needs to be sure the denuclearization will move beyond phase two," said the U.S. diplomat, also noting any attempt by the North to proliferate its nuclear materials, technology or know-how would seriously undermine the current momentum to establish peace and also normalize the relationship between the U.S. and North Korea.

"It is important to consider what North Korea can gain from this," he said.

He was apparently referring to the allegation that North Korea helped Syria build a nuclear reactor, one rejected both by Pyongyang and Damascus.

SEOUL, Oct. 26 (Yonhap)