US and South Korea to Hold High-Level Defense Talks in Seoul on the 18th

Holding Integrated Defense Council... Pre-meeting Nature of November ROK-US Security Consultative Meeting

South Korea and the United States will hold the 23rd Korea-US Integrated Defense Dialogue (KIDD) meeting in Seoul on the 18th to discuss security issues such as North Korea's increasing nuclear and missile provocations.

The South Korean and U.S. Departments of Defense announced that they held the 22nd Korea-U.S. Integrated Defense Dialogue (KIDD) meeting in Washington DC on April 11-12 (local time). The photo shows the Korean and U.S. representatives posing for a commemorative photo at the KIDD meeting: Lee Seung-beom, Director of International Policy (from left), Heo Tae-geun, Director of Defense Policy, Ely Ratner, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, and Siddharth Mohandas, Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asia. Photo by Yonhap News.

According to the Ministry of National Defense on the 14th, the Korea-US defense authorities plan to discuss overall alliance security issues including policy coordination for the complete denuclearization of North Korea and the suppression and response to nuclear and missile threats, strengthening the combined defense posture, and the conditional transfer of wartime operational control. They will also review the implementation status of key defense tasks following this year's Korea-US summit and the Korea-US-Japan summit held at Camp David, and discuss follow-up measures.

This meeting also serves as a preliminary meeting for the 55th Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) scheduled for November. Accordingly, the agenda will include expanding cooperation in space, cyber domains, and missile response to develop into a "global comprehensive strategic alliance," enhancing cooperation in defense science and technology and the global defense industry supply chain, and expanding regional security cooperation including Korea-US-Japan security cooperation.

The chief representatives from both sides will be Heo Tae-geun, Director General of Defense Policy at the Ministry of National Defense, and Kara Allison Marshall, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia at the US Department of Defense. KIDD is a high-level consultative body launched in 2011 for timely and effective security consultations between Korea and the US. It consists of the Executive Session, Security Policy Initiative (SPI), Defense Strategy Committee (DSC), and Combined Operational Control Transfer Working Group (COTWG).

The 21st meeting was held in Seoul in August last year, and the 22nd meeting was held in Washington DC, USA, in April this year.

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