By Park Si-soo
“The era of strategic patience is over,” U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said during his high-profile visit to the heavily fortified zone dividing South and North Korea on Monday.
Pence made the remark after an unannounced visit to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) at the start of his 10-day trip to Asia. As the vice president, wearing a brown bomber jacket, was briefed near the military demarcation line, two North Korean soldiers watched from nearby, one photographing the American visitor, according to reporters traveling with Pence.
Pence told reporters near the DMZ that President Donald Trump was hopeful that China would use its “extraordinary levers” to pressure the North to abandon its weapons program, a day after the North's failed missile launch.
But Pence expressed impatience with the regime’s unwillingness to move toward ridding itself of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
Pointing to the 25 years since North Korea obtained nuclear weapons, Pence said a period of patience had followed.
“But the era of strategic patience is over,” he said. “President Trump has made it clear that the patience of the U.S. and our allies in this region has run out and we want to see change.
“We want to see North Korea abandon its reckless path of the development of nuclear weapons. Also, its continual use and testing of ballistic missiles is unacceptable.”