In this file photo taken on April 21, 2023, American and the Republic of Korea flags hang from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus, in Washington. (PHOTO / AP)

SEOUL - The Republic of Korea (ROK) and the United States have named envoys to launch a new early round of talks on ways to share the cost of keeping American troops in the ROK, the countries said on Tuesday.

The appointment of the ROK's Lee Tae-woo and the United States' Linda Specht comes unusually early for a deal set to take effect in 2026, perhaps aimed at reaching agreement before the possible re-election of Donald Trump as US president.

Some 28,500 American troops are stationed in the ROK as part of efforts to deter the nuclear-armed Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The early appointment was intended to "allow sufficient time in advance" to prepare but no date was set for a fresh round of talks, said Lim Soo-suk, a spokesman for the ROK's foreign ministry

The ROK began shouldering the costs of US deployments, used to fund local labor, the construction of military installations and other logistics support, in the early 1990s.

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"Both delegations will endeavor to engage in productive consultations that strengthen the combined defense posture and further solidify our alliance," the ministry and the US State Department said in a joint statement.

The early appointment was intended to "allow sufficient time in advance" to prepare but no date was set for a fresh round of talks, said Lim Soo-suk, a spokesman for the ROK's foreign ministry.

"Looking at past cases, there were times when negotiations took quite a long time," he told a briefing.

Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in the November election, had during his presidency accused the ROK, a key Asian ally, of "free-riding" on US military might, and demanded that it pay as much as $5 billion a year for the US deployment.

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Media in the ROK have said the planned early talks on the Special Measures Agreement aim at extending a deal to 2026 and beyond, before any potential comeback by Trump.

The current agreement is set to expire in 2025, with negotiations on a successor pact usually held just before the end of the existing one.

During Trump's presidency, both sides had struggled for months to make progress, before reaching a deal when Seoul agreed to increase its contribution by 13.9 percent, the biggest annual rise in nearly two decades.

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Lee, a seasoned diplomat with experience in US and security affairs, previously served as consul-general in Sydney and deputy nuclear envoy for the DPRK.

Specht is a senior adviser and lead negotiator for security pacts in the State Department's bureau of political and military affairs.