The South Korean government is considering sending 500-600 engineering troops and a 150-member medical unit to the Middle East to support its ally and participate in the post-war reconstruction.

Although the world is divided over the US military actions on Iraq in name of disarming the biggest threat to world peace, and people of many countries, including South Koreans, held large scale demonstrations against the war, Seoul said it stands by its ally, but hopes the war will end soon.

It was believed that President Roh Moo-hyun made such a decision out of a desire to repair the country's ties with the United States which were in a glooming stage, analysts said.

The half-century-long South Korea-US alliance has experienced hard time since last November when a US military court acquitted two US soldiers whose armed vehicle rolled two local girls to death.

From then on, South Korean university students, civic groups and activists have held protests or candle gatherings almost every week. They strongly demanded the revision of Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), which stipulates the rights of US troops stationed in the country.

Even Roh Moo-hyun, who took office as the country's top leader last month, himself had said that he wanted to strengthen the South Korea-US alliance only on a more equal, cooperative basis.

Moreover, the new president called on Washington "not to go too far" after fighter planes of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) intercepted a US reconnaissance plane in early March.

However, the anti-US mood seemed to harm South Korea's economy for foreign investors, especially American investors, maintained a wait-and-see stance, which led to a decrease of the foreign direct investment in the Asian country, whose economy is undergoing a tougher time for various unfavorable factors.

South Korea's external trade posted two consecutive months of losses in January and February for the first time since the 1997 economic crisis due to the soaring price of oil, and Moody's Investors Service downgraded the country's sovereign rating outlook from "positive" to "negative" in February, which aroused serious concern in the local business community.

The country's third largest family-run business group, the SK Group, was proved to have inflated some US$1.21 billion profits through window dressing earlier in March.

The exposure of the accounting scandal blemished the reputation of South Korean enterprises, led to consecutive tumbling of the stock market and hit the country's economy.

On the top of all these, senior US defense officials had said they may cut the number of the 370,000 US troops in South Korea and relocate some troops near the South Korean and DPRK border.

Such remarks aroused panic in the South Korean society as well as in the cabinet in fear of losing the protecting umbrella.

So, Roh Moo-hyun and his cabinet colleagues recently, on several occasions, underscored the importance of the US military presence on the Korean Peninsula and the South Korea-US alliance in general.

Moreover, the nuclear issue of the DPRK and the inter-Korea ties also had something to do with the government's decision to support the war on Iraq.

"Roh's administration had no choice but to give a positive reply to the US demand, hoping the US government may soften its stance on the DPRK nuclear standoff," explained some analysts.

Although South Korea and the United States repeatedly said that the issue should be dealt with in a peaceful and diplomatic way, there are still differences between the two allies on the matter, with the United States refusing to rule out the military means in resolving the nuclear issue.

Nonetheless, White house spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters that his government continues to support the South Korean government's "Sunshine Policy" on DPRK last Friday, one day after Roh Moo-hyun and US President George W. Bush talked over the phone.

In the 15-minute talks, the South Korea leader reportedly assured support for the US government on the Iraq issue.

"Maybe that's why our government agreed to dispatch troops," Paik hak-soon, analyst at the Sejong Institute, said.

(Xinhua News Agency March 21, 2003)