By KIM TONG-HYUNG, Related Press
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — U.S. Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the Demilitarized Zone separating the 2 Koreas on Monday as he started a two-day go to to ally South Korea for safety talks.
Hegseth and South Korean Protection Minister Ahn Gyu-back acquired a briefing from navy officers at Remark Publish Ouellette, a web site close to the navy demarcation line that previous U.S. presidents, together with Donald Trump throughout his first time period in 2019, had visited to look throughout the border into North Korea and meet with American troopers.
Hegseth and Ahn additionally visited the Panmunjom border village, the place an armistice was signed to pause the 1950-53 Korean Warfare. Ahn’s ministry stated the go to “reaffirmed the agency mixed protection posture and shut coordination” between the allies.
Hegseth didn’t point out North Korea, which has ignored Washington and Seoul’s requires dialogue lately whereas accelerating the enlargement of its nuclear weapons and missile packages.
South Korea’s navy additionally stated Monday that the nation’s Joint Chiefs of Employees Chairman Gen. Jin Yong-sung and his U.S. counterpart, Gen. Dan Caine, oversaw a mixed formation flight aboard South Korean and U.S. F-16 fighter jets above a serious U.S. navy base in Pyeongtaek.
The flight, carried out for the primary time, was meant to exhibit the allies’ “ironclad mixed protection posture” and the “unwavering” power of the alliance, Seoul’s Protection Ministry stated.
Hegseth and Ahn, who beforehand met on Saturday at a protection ministers’ assembly in Malaysia, will attend the allies’ annual protection talks in Seoul on Tuesday.
The talks are anticipated to cowl key alliance points, together with South Korea’s dedication to extend protection spending and the implementation of a earlier settlement to switch wartime operational management of allied forces to a binational command led by a South Korean basic with a U.S. deputy.
There are additionally issues in Seoul that the Trump administration could demand a lot increased South Korean funds for the U.S. navy presence within the nation or presumably downsize America’s navy footprint to focus extra on China.
Hegseth’s go to comes days after Trump traveled to South Korea for conferences with world leaders, together with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and Chinese language President Xi Jinping, on the sidelines of this yr’s Asia-Pacific Financial Cooperation summit in Gyeongju.
Throughout his assembly with Trump on Wednesday final week, Lee reaffirmed South Korea’s dedication to extend protection spending to scale back the monetary burden on America and in addition referred to as for U.S. assist in South Korean efforts to accumulate nuclear-powered submarines.
Trump later stated on social media that the US will share intently held expertise to permit South Korea to construct a nuclear-powered submarine, and that the vessel might be constructed within the Philly Shipyard, which was purchased final yr by South Korea’s Hanwha Group. The leaders additionally superior commerce talks, addressing particulars of $350 billion in U.S. investments South Korea dedicated to in an effort to keep away from the Trump administration’s highest tariffs.
