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US Vice President Kamala Harris has arrived in Seoul on a visit designed to underline america’s dedication to South Korea as Pyongyang continued an unprecedented blitz of weapons testing with the launch of two ballistic missiles.
Shortly after touching down from Japan on Thursday morning, Harris met South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol at his workplace in Seoul and praised the alliance between the international locations as a “linchpin of safety and prosperity”.
Yoon, a conservative who took workplace in Might, referred to as her go to “one other turning level” in strengthening ties.
Harris will go to the heavily-fortified demilitarised zone (DMZ), which has existed for the reason that 1950-53 Korean Warfare led to an armistice somewhat than a peace treaty, later within the day.
“It’s virtually on the ‘to-do record’ of any vp or president visiting this a part of the world, to go to the DMZ,” stated Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride, who’s in Paju, South Korea, close to the border.
US President Joe Biden visited the realm when he was vp in 2013, whereas former President Donald Trump went there in 2019, creating headlines by shaking hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and moving into North Korea.
These have been “heady days”, McBride stated, and far has modified since.
“It’s a sign of how far the connection has slipped backwards that when Harris visits the DMZ, she is prone to observe a way more normal go to, in all probability assembly totally different service personnel, [and] peering throughout to the north,” he stated.
North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles on Wednesday, whereas Harris was in Japan, and had fired one earlier than she left Washington, DC, on Sunday. Many analysts say it’s getting ready to launch its first nuclear weapon in 5 years.
Harris and Yoon have been anticipated to debate the North Korean menace and the US commitments to defend South Korea. They have been additionally anticipated to debate increasing financial and know-how partnerships and repairing not too long ago strained ties between Seoul and Tokyo.
Whereas in Tokyo, the place she attended the state funeral of assassinated former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Harris condemned North Korea’s “illicit weapons programme”.
In Washington, DC, White Home Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated the newest missile checks wouldn’t deter Harris from the DMZ and that she needed to show the US’s “rock-solid dedication” to regional safety.
“As you realize, North Korea has a historical past of doing a lot of these checks,” Jean-Pierre stated, calling it “common”.
Yoon campaigned for election on guarantees to deepen Seoul’s financial and safety partnership with Washington to raised deal with the challenges posed by North Korea, and deal with potential provide chain dangers attributable to the pandemic, US-China rivalry and Russia’s struggle on Ukraine.
A spat between the 2 allies over electrical autos has created tensions, however safety points are prone to dominate Harris’s one-day go to.
South Korea and the US this yr resumed large-scale mixed army workouts that had been downsized or suspended throughout the Trump administration to assist his finally futile nuclear diplomacy with Kim.
Earlier this week, armed forces from the 2 international locations carried out a military drill in waters off South Korea’s east coast involving the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan plane service, which is in South Korea for the primary time in 5 years.
And on Friday, South Korea’s navy will stage trilateral anti-submarine workouts with US and Japanese forces which can be designed to enhance their functionality to counter evolving North Korean threats, together with its submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
The drills will deliver collectively warships, together with the USS Ronald Reagan plane service, the USS Chancellorsville guided-missile cruiser, the USS Barry guided-missile destroyer, South Korea’s Munmu the Nice destroyer and Japan’s Asahi tanker.
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