INTERNATIONAL: United States Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin has visited the South Korean Defense Ministry in Seoul on Thursday to meet with Defense Minister Suh Wook.

Austin and U.S. top military officials are scheduled to participate in annual consultative meetings with South Korean counterparts, which hosts around 28,500 American troops as a legacy of the 1950-1953 Korean War, which ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty. The meetings were the first official "Security Consultative Meeting (SCM)" between the allies since U.S. President Joe Biden took office in January.

Seoul is seeking to persuade Washington to back an "end of war declaration" as a way to jumpstart stalled denuclearisation talks with North Korea. U.S. officials have signalled support for such a declaration, but has claimed there may be disagreements with South Korea over the sequence of such measures.

^{PHOTO: U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, LLOYD AUSTIN, AND SOUTH KOREAN DEFENSE MINISTER, SUH WOOK, AT JOINT NEWS CONFERENCE AFTER MEETING/ SOUNDBITE FROM AUSTIN AND SUH/ AUSTIN, SUH AND OFFICIALS AT SECURITY CONSULTATIVE MEETING (SCM) MEETING}