Harris also visited the Panmunjom Truce Village – where then-US president Donald Trump met the North’s Kim Jong Un in 2019 – and talked to US soldiers at Camp Bonifas in the Joint Security Area.
On the North Korean side of the border at Panmunjom, guards in hazmat suits could be seen watching as Harris was shown the demarcation line between the two countries – which remain technically at war.
Speaking at the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), Harris said that US and South Korean soldiers were “serving shoulder to shoulder … to maintain the security and the stability of this region of the world”.
She said the US commitment to South Korea’s defence was “ironclad”, adding that the allies were “aligned” in their response to the growing threat posed by the North’s weapons programs.
The allies both want “a complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”, but in the interim they are “ready to address any contingency”, she said.
South Korean and US officials have warned for months that Kim Jong Un is preparing to conduct another nuclear test.
Harris decried North Korea’s “brutal dictatorship, rampant human rights violations and an unlawful weapons program that threatens peace and stability”.
YOON TALKS
Washington has about 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea to help protect it from the North, and the allies are conducting a large-scale joint naval exercise this week in a show of force.
Harris’ trip to the DMZ is likely to infuriate Pyongyang, which branded United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi the “worst destroyer of international peace” when she visited the border in August.
Harris arrived in Seoul after a trip to Japan, where she attended the state funeral of assassinated former prime minister Shinzo Abe.
Earlier Thursday, Harris met President Yoon Suk-yeol for talks dominated by security issues – although Seoul also raised its concerns over a new law signed by US President Joe Biden that removes subsidies for electric cars built outside America, impacting Korean automakers such as Hyundai and Kia.
Harris, America’s first woman vice president, also met what the White House called “groundbreaking women leaders” of South Korea to discuss gender equality issues, a topic she said she raised with Yoon during their talks.
Yoon, who has pledged to abolish Seoul’s Ministry of Gender Equality, has faced domestic criticism for a lack of women in his cabinet.