Defense chiefs of South Korea and the United States condemned the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s recent missile launches during the bilateral talks in Washington, Seoul's defense ministry said Thursday.
South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo visited Washington to hold talks with his U.S. counterpart James Mattis at the Pentagon Wednesday morning (Washington time), according to the Ministry of National Defense.
Song and Mattis confirmed a firm South Korea-U.S. alliance, strongly denouncing the DPRK's ballistic missile launch on Tuesday and two other missile tests in July as a reckless, provocative and destructive behavior, the ministry said in a press release.
Pyongyang launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), called Hwasong-12, over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido earlier this week.
It was followed by the DPRK's tests in July of what it called an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), dubbed by the DPRK as Hwasong-14.
Song and Mattis agreed to continue to strengthen the combined defense readiness of the two allies to defend and deter the DPRK threats by securing core military capabilities and interoperable combat capability.
From this perspective, South Korea's military would continue to develop the Kill Chain and the Korea Air and Missile Defense (KAMD) systems.
The Kill Chain is designed to preemptively strike the DPRK's missile launch sites when signs of the first strike are spotted. The KAMD is a project to develop its indigenous missile defense system to shoot down incoming DPRK missiles at multiple layers.
The defense chiefs expressed their support for the ongoing diplomatic efforts at the denuclearized Korean Peninsula, saying the diplomatic efforts would be backed by strong, effective and trustworthy countermeasures of the military.
