The three-day meeting is the fifth and last round of its kind to fine-tune positions ahead of a high-level security meeting to be held between South Korea and the US from October 25.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is to attend the annual security conference in Seoul.
The security meeting comes as the 50-year-old US-South Korea alliance is under strain from differences over the handling of the North Korean nuclear crisis and a US request to send South Korean troops to Iraq.
The US request has triggered a new wave of anti-American sentiment by South Korean activists and anti-war groups.
Yonhap news agency said this week's meeting would cover the US request for troop dispatch.
The Defense Ministry declined to confirm the report but a ministry official said the two sides could take up "various security issues".
President Roh Moo-Hyun has said he would take his time in responding to the US request.
Opinion polls show most South Koreans are opposed to the troop dispatch.
Washington stations 37 000 troops in South Korea who stand shoulder to shoulder with some 700 000 South Korean troops as a deterrent to North Korea's 1,1-million-strong army.
The two military allies have reached broad agreement on the US troop realignment though many details have yet to be worked out.
The most controversial element of the plan concerns the proposal to pull back the US 2nd Infantry Division, made up of more than 15 000 troops, from camps near the demilitarised zone that separates North and South Korea to bases south of Seoul.
Washington believes it can deter North Korea more effectively with long distance precision firepower and at the same time lighten a ground presence that has been the source of political controversy in the south.
However, South Koreans have expressed concern about the speed of the changes and want to delay the US troop relocation in view of public concern over security and financial costs.
During a meeting in Hawaii in July, both sides agreed that South Korea should take over control of the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom from US-led troops by late 2004.
They also reaffirmed previous agreements to relocate a main US military base out of Seoul by 2006 and deploy US forces away from the border with North Korean south of the Han River.
The US has proposed the transfer of some missions to South Korean forces as part of the plan to pull US ground forces back from the border.
The American military presence in South Korea was thrust into the spotlight last year by massive anti-US protests following the deaths of two girls in a road accident involving a US military vehicle.
The US plan calls for a redeployment of frontline American forces south of the Han River in two phases. – Sapa-AFP.
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