South Korea plans to build a barracks for US troops on an island near the tense sea border with North Korea in case of emergency or military drills, the defence ministry said Sunday.

The barracks will be built on Baengnyeong, a front-line island and flashpoint in the Yellow Sea, a ministry spokesman told AFP.

"US soldiers will use the barracks during joint military drills or in case of emergency," he said, declining to give details.

The South will start building the barracks capable of housing some 160 US soldiers next year and construction will be completed by 2013, Yonhap news agency said.

In July, South Korean and US marines conducted their first joint drill near Baengnyeong. The United States bases 28,500 troops in the South.

At security talks in Seoul last month, the US and South Korean defence chiefs vowed to raise combat-readiness near the disputed sea border against North Korean attacks.

Inter-Korean ties have been tense since Seoul accused its neighbour of torpedoing a South Korean warship in March 2010 near the Yellow Sea border with the loss of 46 lives.

The North denied sinking the ship but shelled a border island near Baengnyeong last November, killing four South Koreans including civilians.

The disputed border was the scene of deadly naval clashes in 1999, 2002 and 2009.