Seoul, Sep 10 (IANS): Defence officials of South Korea and the United States held talks to discuss ways to respond to North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Seoul’s defence ministry said Thursday.
Woo Kyung-suk, director general of the ministry’s policy planning bureau, and Jason Hamm, the deputy US assistant secretary of war for nuclear deterrence and countering WMD policy, led the session in Seoul, according to the ministry.
The talks come as North Korea continues to advance its nuclear and missile capabilities, including weapons designed to target South Korea and the US, while rejecting calls to give up its nuclear arsenal, Yonhap News Agency reported.
During the meeting, the allies voiced concern that the North’s WMD programs are causing instability on the Korean Peninsula and in the broader region, and discussed measures to bolster the allies’ practical capabilities to respond to the potential use of such weapons by Pyongyang.
The officials also agreed to continue cooperation in responding to biological threats, including infectious diseases such as COVID-19, and discussed post-management methods to strengthen the alliance’s joint operational capabilities.
The two sides assessed that the meeting helped deepen cooperation between the allies on countering WMD threats and vowed to effectively respond to the North’s threats through an “overwhelming” combined defence posture.
On Wednesday, the top military commanders of South Korea and the US Forces Korea (USFK) visited eastern front-line border units, reaffirming joint readiness and deterrence amid a surge in North Korean border activities in recent weeks.
Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Chairman General Jin Yong-sung and General Xavier Brunson, Commander of the USFK, visited eastern border posts to inspect operations and readiness along the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas, the JCS said in a release.
“The Commanders reaffirmed the solid South Korea-US combined defence posture and agreed on the need to continue to strengthen capabilities, readiness and interoperability to effectively respond to the evolving security environment and maintain robust deterrence,” the JCS said.
Inspecting an eastern guard post, the commanders evaluated recent North Korean military operations near the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) inside the DMZ buffer zone and checked the readiness of the border units.
The inspection follows a sharp rise in border incursions by North Korean troops along the eastern front, with South Korea’s military detecting over 20 such cases in August alone, exceeding the 17 similar incidents recorded throughout 2025.
