The top generals of South Korea and the United States on Friday reaffirmed their “unwavering” commitment to the combined defense posture and condemned North Korea’s deepening military cooperation with Russia, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

JCS Chairman Adm. Kim Myung-soo and his U.S. counterpart, Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., held the annual Military Committee Meeting virtually to discuss ways to deepen security cooperation against North Korea’s continued nuclear and missile threats.

“Both leaders affirmed, in the strongest words possible, their unwavering commitment to the combined defense posture under the U.S.-ROK Mutual Defense Treaty, emphasizing their dedication to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the region,” the South’s JCS said in an English-language release.

ROK stands for South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea. The two countries signed the bedrock alliance document in 1953.

During the talks, Kim and Brown voiced concerns over key security challenges in
the region and on the peninsula, including the North’s increasing missile capabilities, nuclear threats and cyberattacks, as well as deepening military cooperation with Russia, according to the release.

“Both leaders underscored that the DPRK’s provocative acts, and the DPRK’s enhanced military cooperation with Russia destabilize peace and security on the Peninsula and across the globe,” it said, referring to the North by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Kim specifically highlighted North Korea’s trash balloon campaign and how the North has defined the South as a hostile state. Since late May, the North has launched more than 5,000 balloons toward the South in retaliation against anti-Pyongyang leaflets sent to the North by North Korean defectors and activists in South Korea.

Against such a backdrop, both sides commended efforts to enhance trilateral security cooperation, also involving Japan, as seen in the Freedom Edge exercise, a trilateral multidomain exercise first launche
d in June.

The latest meeting was also joined by Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, and Gen. Paul J. LaCamera, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea, the United Nations Command and the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command.

This year’s meeting was initially scheduled to be held in the U.S., but Kim canceled his trip amid heightened cross-border tensions following North Korea’s explosions of major roads connecting the two Koreas on Tuesday.

Source: Yonhap News Agency