WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- On a visit to Asia, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on Monday described North Korea as posing "real threats," a reason for Washington's military pivot towards the region.
"We continue in this part of the world to face a threat from North Korea and the possibility of nuclear confrontation with them," he said during a town hall meeting with service members at a U.S. Air Force base in Japan.
The secretary is now visiting China, the second leg of his week-long Asia swing that will also take him to New Zealand.
He stressed the strategic importance of Asia for Washington and security threats from Pyongyang.
"We have got to focus our force in those areas that we -- in which we face the biggest threats. And so that's why we're rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific, because we confront real threats here, from North Korea," Panetta said.
He said the U.S. faces a number of challenges around the world as shown in the rise of anti-American protests in Muslim nations over the past several days.
Despite a push for leaner armed forces, he said, the U.S. should maintain capabilities to deal with more than one enemy at a time.
"If we have to confront a war in Korea, in North Korea, we've got be able to deal with an enemy that may close the Straits of Hormuz," he said. The Strait of Hormuz is the passageway into the Persian Gulf.
On various territorial spats involving China, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asian countries, Panetta reiterated Washington's call for peaceful resolutions.
"The one thing that I am urging is that countries develop a process to resolve these disputes peacefully," he said.
Earlier, he warned of the possibility of violence or conflict from "a misjudgment on one side or the other."
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