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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 obtained 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 mentioned 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 in recent times whereas accelerating the enlargement of its nuclear weapons and missile packages.
South Korea’s navy additionally mentioned 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, performed for the primary time, was supposed to display the allies’ “ironclad mixed protection posture” and the “unwavering” energy of the alliance, Seoul’s Protection Ministry mentioned.
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 common with a U.S. deputy.
There are additionally issues in Seoul that the Trump administration might demand a lot greater South Korean funds for the U.S. navy presence within the nation or probably 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 12 months’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 cut back the monetary burden on America and likewise known as for U.S. assist in South Korean efforts to amass nuclear-powered submarines.
Trump later mentioned 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 shall be constructed within the Philly Shipyard, which was purchased final 12 months 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.
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