A ranking U.S. defense official will fly to Seoul next week to follow up on the South Korea-U.S. summit, in which the top leaders of the two nations agreed to be tough on North Korea's provocations and strengthen their alliance, Yonhap reported Saturday citing a Pentagon official.
Michele Flournoy, undersecretary of defense for policy, will visit Seoul next Friday, the unnamed official said, adding "This trip has added significance as the first high-level U.S. government visit to Seoul following the summit between Presidents Obama and Lee on June 16 during which the two leaders promulgated the joint vision statement outlining our shared vision of the future, of a more strategic and global-oriented U.S.-South Korean alliance."
In their summit on Tuesday, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama urged North Korea to return to denuclearization talks and warned that Pyongyang will not be rewarded for its provocations.
In a joint statement titled, the Joint Vision for the Alliance of the United States and South Korea, released after their summit, Obama affirmed the nuclear umbrella for South Korea against nuclear-armed North Korea.
It is the first time that the nuclear shield was guaranteed in written form at any summit between the leaders of the two countries.