SEOUL, South Korea: South Korea’s defense minister reacted positively to a suggestion from a state-run think tank that the country keep its troops in Iraq for another year, a news report said Thursday.

Defense Minister Kim Jang-soo gave a "positive assessment" of last week’s report by the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, which argued the government should prolong its troops’ presence in Iraq, the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported, without saying how it got the information.

The ministry dismissed the report as "speculative."

South Korea has about 1,200 troops in the northern Iraqi province of Irbil on a reconstruction mission set to expire at the end of the year, with the government now drawing up a pullout plan under instruction from parliament. Drawing up the plan does not necessarily mean that a pullout will take place this year.

"The Defense Ministry’s policy remains unchanged that it will submit a mission termination plan by the end of June," a ministry official said on customary condition of anonymity citing ministry protocols. "The contents of the plan have not been fixed yet."

The state-run think tank said it did report to the defense chief last week, but only presented the pros and cons related to keeping troops in Iraq for longer.

On Wednesday, MBC television network carried a similar report saying that the government has decided to extend the dispatch after cutting the troop levels to 800 or 900.

The ministry denied that report.

South Korea, a key U.S. ally in Asia, dispatched its first troops to Iraq in 2003 with a 600-strong contingent.

It sent 3,000 more troops the following year at Washington’s request, making it the United States’ biggest coalition partner after Britain.

However, troop levels have since gradually declined amid rising public opposition to the mission. Calls for withdrawing the troops reached their peak when Islamic insurgents beheaded a South Korean civilian working in Iraq in June 2004, after Seoul rejected the kidnappers’ demands to withdraw its forces.

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