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| ▲ South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik (R) and his U.S. counterpart, Lloyd Austin, shake hands during their meeting in Tokyo on July 28, 2024, in this photo provided by Shin's office. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
S Korea-US-defense talks
Defense chiefs of S. Korea, U.S. urge Pyongyang to cease balloon campaign
SEOUL, July 28 (Yonhap) -- The defense chiefs of South Korea and the United States on Sunday strongly urged Pyongyang to immediately cease its repeated launch of trash-carrying balloons into the South, Seoul's defense ministry said.
Defense Minister Shin Won-sik and his U.S. counterpart, Lloyd Austin, made the call as they met in Tokyo for bilateral talks, where they also discussed ways to strengthen their deterrence capabilities against North Korean threats, according to the ministry.
Shin stressed that the North's continued balloon campaign is a threat to South Korea's sovereignty that breaches the Armistice Agreement, it added.
Since late May, North Korea has launched thousands of trash-carrying balloons in a tit-for-tat response against anti-Pyongyang leaflets sent by defector groups and activists in the South. South Korea has also resumed propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts near the border.
In their meeting, the defense chiefs reaffirmed their commitment to deter the North's provocations and denounced the illegal arms trade and transfer of military technology between Pyongyang and Moscow as a clear violation of the U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Touching on the allies' recent signing of the "Guidelines for Nuclear Deterrence and Nuclear Operations on the Korean Peninsula," Shin and Austin said the joint nuclear deterrence guidelines will provide a "solid foundation" for enhancing their extended deterrence cooperation in an integrated manner.
The defense chiefs reaffirmed that their alliance is "stronger than ever" and vowed joint efforts for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and the Indo-Pacific region, the defense ministry said.
Their meeting was held on the sidelines of a trilateral ministerial meeting of the defense chiefs of South Korea, the U.S. and Japan, where the leaders inked a Memorandum of Cooperation on the Trilateral Security Cooperation Framework, a document meant to institutionalize their trilateral security cooperation.
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