SEOUL, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- Defense chiefs of South Korea and the United States will hold an annual security meeting in Seoul later this week, Seoul's defense ministry said Thursday.
The ministry said in a statement that South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo and U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis will hold the 49th Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) in Seoul on Saturday.
Attending the meeting would be senior defense and diplomatic officials from both sides, the statement said.
On Friday, the 42nd Military Committee Meeting will be co-chaired by Jeong Kyeong-doo, chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and his U.S. counterpart Joseph Dunford.
It would mark the first such a meeting under the new governments of both the United States and South Korea. U.S. President Donald Trump will make a two-day state visit to South Korea from Nov. 7.
During the bilateral meeting, Song and Mattis will make an in-depth discussion on various security issues and the development of the South Korea-U.S. alliance, according to South Korea's Defense Ministry.
On the dialogue agenda would be the assessment of threats from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), coordination to resolve the DPRK issues, improving "extended deterrence," the rapid push for the conditions-based transfer of wartime operational control and cooperation in international security issues.
The top U.S. military official is scheduled to arrive at South Korea early on Friday morning. According to local media reports, Mattis has planned to tour the Joint Security Area (JSA) inside the truce village of Panmunjom on the first day of his two-day visit to the country.
Inside the JSA, soldiers of South Korea and the DPRK stand face-to-face just meters away from each other. It would mark the first visit of Mattis to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas.
Mattis, who took office in January, made his first trip to South Korea in February when he didn't visit the JSA.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited the JSA when he traveled to South Korea in March.
