Panetta travels to Korean Peninsula ahead of Trump summit with North
CONGRESSMAN JIMMY Panetta and three other members of the U.S. House of Representatives traveled to the Korean Peninsula last weekend to meet with high-level officials and a U.S. commander about the possible denuclearization of North Korea.
During the trip, Panetta and his colleagues, Republicans Martha McSally and David Schweikert, and fellow Democrat Tom O'Halleran, met with South Korean Deputy Defense Minister for Policy, Yeo Suk-joo, to discuss diplomatic efforts to defuse the threat from North Korea.
"We went there to get a sense of what's going on there on the ground, and to get a firsthand look at our military and our readiness," Panetta told The Pine Cone Wednesday. They also discussed how negotiations are going for the summit between the United States and North Korea, Panetta said.
The White House and Pyongyang are scrambling to salvage the summit, which was planned for June 12 in Singapore, but which President Donald Trump canceled after provocative rhetoric from a North Korean vice minister. Lately, the summit is back on.
What are the details?
Panetta said he supports direct talks between the countries with a goal of achieving the "complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of North Korea." However, the congressman stressed the importance of working out the details of the summit before Trump and Kim Jong-un sit down.
"With any summit that you have, especially dealing with the denuclearization of a country, what are the details?" he said. "I would hope that it will be figured out prior to any faceto-face summit between the two leaders."
The freshman congressman added, "You cannot apply New York real estate negotiation tactics to these types of international deals."
Face to face at the border
During the bipartisan group's meeting with the South Korean minister, Panetta asked whether scaling back joint military exercises on the Peninsula might make the North Korean dictator feel like it's safe to get rid of his nuclear stockpile.
Yeo's answer was, "‘We always need to be ready, but we might be able to look at certain things we can do within those KOREA From page 1A exercises that aren't as aggressive as in the past,'" Panetta said.
The group visited the Joint Security Area — the notoriously tense part of the Demilitarized Zone where troops from North and South Korean are face to face.
"Seeing a North Korean solider about 50 yards away from us, it definitely makes it real," Panetta said. "Another 50 yards to the north was the same area where a North Korean defector [in November 2017] ran across the border and was shot numerous times."
American war dead
The members of Congress also visited Yongsan Army base, where they met with Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, the commander in charge of United States military forces in South Korea, and officials with the U.S. embassy, Osan Airbase (home of the 7th Air Force and 25th Fighter Squadron) and Camp Humphreys, where the 8th Army and 2nd Infantry Division are stationed.
At Osan, the group was shown surface-to-air systems designed to down enemy aircraft and incoming missiles, and A-10 Thunderbolt fighter-bombers.
Panetta met with service members, and in one of the more inspiring moments of the trip, he visited the War Memorial of Korea — a massive museum in Seoul which, in part, pays tribute to the 36,574 Americans who died trying to contain Communist aggression during the 1950-1953 Korean War.
"This is another country that has dedicated a full wing of a museum to the sacrifice of our troops; it was overwhelming, yet gratifying," he said of the Memorial Day visit. "It gave me optimism about the future."