US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has accused North Korea of building a nuclear arsenal to "threaten others with catastrophe" and says the Trump administration remains committed to compelling the North to accept complete nuclear disarmament.
Calling the North a threat to global order, Mattis stood inside the Demilitarised Zone that separates the two Koreas and pledged solidarity with the South.
"We stand should to shoulder with you and the Korean people in confronting the threats posed by the Kim Jong Un regime," Mattis said as South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo looked on.
Mattis called the North "an oppressive regime that shackles its people, denying their freedom, their welfare and their human dignity in pursuit of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery in order to threaten others with catastrophe."
Making time to visit a US-South Korean military observation post to peer into the North, Mattis was also briefed on conditions along the border created after a truce halted the Korean War in 1953.
Mattis arrived in South Korea earlier on Friday to meet with the nation's top defense officials and American military commanders on the front line in countering North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
Mattis is emphasising the Trump administration's push for a diplomatic solution to the problem. But he also has said the US is prepared to take military action if the North does not halt its development of missiles that could strike the US, potentially with a nuclear warhead.
On his second trip as defense secretary to the US ally, Mattis will meet with South Korean officials as part of an annual consultation on defense issues on the Korean peninsula. He'll be joined in Seoul by the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford. President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit the city next month.
