The United States plans to pull out 4,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea for deployment in Iraq.

A government official said Monday that the brigade-strong contingent from the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division will be sent to the war-torn nation in a few weeks.

The official said Washington had recently notified Seoul of the decision through a diplomatic channel, adding that the two nations will soon meet to work out the details.

Meanwhile, the JoongAng Ilbo daily in Seoul said it's not clear whether the 2nd Infantry Division would come back to South Korea after completing what a Seoul government official called "stabilizing operations" in the Gulf nation.

The official said he cannot rule out the possibility of the brigade completely withdrawing from South Korea as U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top officials have been consistently raising a possible reduction in U.S. military presence in South Korea.

A Foreign Ministry official confirmed the report in an early morning news conference. The Director of the ministry's North American Bureau said relevant ministries of the two countries have started talks on pulling out U.S. troops for deployment in Iraq at the U.S. request amid the deteriorating security situation in the nation.

The official said that the United States did not mention South Korea's planned dispatch of additional troops to Iraq, adding that, at initial stage of bilateral consultations, South Korea and the United States are not linking the U.S. troop pullout to the additional deployment of South Korean troops in Iraq.