Pentagon chief to visit DMZ

SEOUL - 26 October 2017: The top military officials of South Korea and the US will visit the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) together this week and issue a warning message to North Korea, Yonhap quoted an official as saying Thursday.

Defense Minister Song Young-moo and Secretary of Defense James Mattis plan to tour the Joint Security Area (JSA), where South and North Korean forces stand face-to-face, on Friday.

With the North several feet away, they plan to read out a statement urging the communist nation to stop provocations.

A day later, Song and Mattis will hold the 49th Security Consultative Meeting (SCM), annual talks between the allies' defense chiefs. This week's session will be the first SCM under the Moon Jae-in and Trump administrations.

It comes ahead of Trump's state visit to South Korea on Nov. 7-8.

Key agenda items are coordination on North Korea and the future of the alliance forged during the 1950-53 Korean War.

The two sides will have "in-depth" discussions on the North's threats and related policy coordination, as well as on ways to enhance "extended deterrence" and on the push for an early transfer of conditions-based operational control (OPCON), according to the Ministry of National Defense.

In particular, they will talk about expanding the "rotational deployment" of so-called US strategic assets to Korea such as aircraft carriers, bomber jets and nuclear-powered submarines, a ministry official told reporters in a background briefing.