Seoul: US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the Demilitarised Zone separating the two Koreas on Monday as he began a two-day visit to ally South Korea for security talks.
Hegseth and South Korean Defence Minister Ahn Gyu-back received a briefing from military officials at Observation Post Ouellette, a site near the military demarcation line that past US presidents, including Donald Trump during his first term in 2019, had visited to peer across the border into North Korea and meet with American soldiers.
Hegseth and Ahn also visited the Panmunjom border village, where an armistice was signed to pause the 1950-53 Korean War. Ahn’s ministry said the visit “reaffirmed the firm combined defence posture and close coordination” between the allies.
Hegseth did not mention North Korea, which has ignored Washington and Seoul’s calls for dialogue in recent years while accelerating the expansion of its nuclear weapons and missile programs.
South Korea’s military also said Monday that the country’s Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Jin Yong-sung and his US counterpart, Gen. Dan Caine, oversaw a combined formation flight aboard South Korean and US F-16 fighter jets above a major US military base in Pyeongtaek.
The flight, conducted for the first time, was intended to demonstrate the allies’ “ironclad combined defence posture” and the “unwavering” strength of the alliance, Seoul’s Defence Ministry said.
Hegseth and Ahn, who previously met on Saturday at a defence ministers’ meeting in Malaysia, will attend the allies’ annual defence talks in Seoul on Tuesday. The talks are expected to cover key alliance issues, including South Korea’s commitment to increase defence spending and the implementation of a previous agreement to transfer wartime operational control of allied forces to a binational command led by a South Korean general with a US deputy.