Photo : YONHAP News
The top brass of South Korea and the United States held their 49th Military Committee Meeting on Friday and expressed concerns over North Korea-Russia military ties.
The virtual gathering saw the attendance of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Chairman Admiral Kim Myung-soo; his U.S. counterpart, General Charles Brown; the commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Samuel Paparo; and the commander of the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command and U.S. Forces Korea, Paul LaCamera.
Kim and Brown agreed that North Korea’s provocations and the expansion of military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow threaten peace on the Korean Peninsula and in the world.
The JCS chiefs expressed concerns over North Korea having recently referred to South Korea as “a foreign country and an apparent hostile country” and over Pyongyang’s continued provocations, including its ongoing trash balloon campaign.
They shared the view that it is crucial to maintain a strong combined defense readiness posture to deter further provocations.
The purpose of the annual meeting is to provide strategic and operational guidelines for the defense of South Korea to the chief of the Combined Forces Command and to discuss military issues between the two countries.
The first meeting took place in 1978, and it is held alternately in South Korea and the United States.