Anchor: South Korea and the United States have failed to reach an agreement within this year on defense sharing costs. U.S. Forces Korea has decided to put its South Korean employees on unpaid leave from next April should negotiations collapse. 
Our Bae Joo-yon has more. 

Report: South Korea and the United States wrapped up three days of negotiations Thursday in Seoul on new terms for the bilateral Special Measures Agreement(SMA), set to take effect next year.

However, a Foreign Ministry official in Seoul said Friday that they failed to reach a final agreement due to differences on Seoul's contribution to the defense costs. 

Under the current five-year contract which will expire this month, Seoul's cost-sharing to support the 28-thousand-500-member U.S. Forces Korea(USFK) is set at around 960 billion won, or around 850 million U.S. dollars, a year. 

South Korea is said to have asked for a reasonable increase in costs while the U.S. requested Seoul to shoulder one-point-35 trillion won annually. 

According to the Wall Street Journal, U.S. President Donald Trump wants South Korea’s cost-sharing to be doubled to one-point-eight trillion won. 

The two sides held ten rounds of negotiations on the issue this year. With no final agreement, more negotiations are expected to come early next year. 

Meanwhile, apparently in a bid to apply pressure, the USFK decided it would put its South Korean employees on unpaid leave starting from April next year should bilateral talks on sharing defense costs collapse.

The USFK reportedly sent a notice to that effect last month to the chief of a labor union of South Koreans working at U.S. bases, as well as South Korea's Labor Ministry. 
 
Currently, about 12-thousand South Koreans are working at U.S. military bases nationwide, with South Korea paying 75 percent of their personnel expenses and the U.S. paying the rest.
Bae Joo-yon, KBS World Radio News.