President Trump is expected to visit South Korea in November.
SEOUL — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis visited the border of North Korea on Friday, calling anew for the “the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” while drawing a contrast between life in the two Koreas.
“To the south lies a vibrant country, a vibrant economy, a free country, and it’s underpinned by peace-loving members of a free society,” Mattis said. “Behind me to the north, an oppressive regime that shackles its people, denying their freedom, their welfare and their human dignity in pursuit of nuclear weapons and the means of delivery, in order to threaten others with catastrophe.”
The secretary, speaking alongside South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-Moo, added that North Korea has carried out “reckless, outlaw behavior,” and that the United States and South Korea “are serious about solving this problem.”
Mattis visited the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two countries after months of provocations by the North Korean military, including the launch of a ballistic missile over Japan and an underground nuclear test Sept. 3. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s regime has threatened to carry out a hydrogen bomb test over the Pacific, an even more striking event that would grab worldwide attention.
Senior U. S. officials have raised concerns about North Korea for decades, but the recent provocations — and clear signs that the Kim regime is making progress in its goal to build an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead — have put world leaders on edge.
