There is no difference between U.S. and South Korean assessments of the North Korean military threat, officials announced Thursday.
U.S. Charge d’ Affaires Evans Revere and Gen. Thomas A. Schwartz, the top U.S. commander in South Korea, attended the meeting with South Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Han Seung-soo and Defense Minister Kim Dong-shin in Seoul.
Such meetings have been held generally each quarter since 1995.
This was the first such meeting held since Han and Kim assumed their posts in a cabinet reshuffling last month.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman said Han told the two U.S. officials he hopes Washington will end its hiatus on talks with Pyongyang soon so they can resume improving relations between the two Koreas.
He said the officials also discussed recent revisions to the ROK-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement and pledged cooperation in negotiating details of some of those revisions.
The spokesman also said the U.S. officials thanked Han and Kim for assistance the South Korean government gave in securing the release of the crew of the surveillance plane that landed on China’s Hainan Island early this month.
Han said in a recent interview that Seoul had provided assistance, but the ministry has refused to divulge exactly how.