Defense Minister Cho Young-kil plans to meet with his U.S. counterpart, Donald Rumsfeld, in Singapore on Friday to discuss pending military issues.

The meeting, which will occur on the sidelines of an annual Asia-Pacific security meeting, is expected to focus on Washington's planned troop reduction on the Korean Peninsula and its overall Global Posture Review program. The two defense ministers will also discuss Seoul's plan to send additional troops to postwar Iraq.

Minister Cho is also scheduled to meet with his Japanese counterpart, Shigeru Ishiba, on Saturday and exchange views on Tokyo's policy toward North Korea and the planned realignment of the U.S. troop presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

This year's regional security meeting in Singapore, known as the Shangri-La Dialogue, is the third since the dialogue was set up by London-based think-tank, International Institute for Strategic Studies, in 2002.