Defense chiefs of South Korea and the United States agreed Thursday to continue peace measures as long as talks with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) last, South Korea's defense ministry said.
U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis visited South Korea to hold talks with his South Korean counterpart Song Young-moo at South Korea's defense ministry's headquarters.
In the joint statement released after the talks, the two ministers agreed to keep considering measures to build mutual trust and peace on the Korean Peninsula as long as a goodwill dialogue with the DPRK lasts.
They discussed the recent measures taken to ease military tensions and build trust, including the suspension of the Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG) joint annual military exercises between Seoul and Washington originally scheduled for August.
South Korea and the United States halted the summertime war games after top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump held the first-ever DPRK-U.S. summit in Singapore on June 12.
The UFG is a computer-simulated command post exercise, which the DPRK had denounced as a dress rehearsal for northward invasion.
Mattis and Song agreed to announce the scale, schedule and contents of future South Korea-U.S. joint military drills through consultations between the two sides.
They confirmed that UN Security Council sanctions on Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programs should be implemented until the DPRK takes concrete and irreversible measures for denuclearization.
After the Singapore summit, Kim and Trump agreed to complete denuclearization of the peninsula in exchange for security guarantees for the DPRK.
