Pelosi meets leaders, enters DMZ

SEOUL — U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met top South Korean political leaders on Thursday, a day after she concluded her highprofile visit to Taiwan by renewing Washington’s “ironclad” commitment to defending democracy on the selfgoverning island despite vehement protests from China.

After visiting Taiwan, Pelosi and other members of Congress flew to South Korea — a key U.S. ally where about 28,500 American troops are deployed — on Wednesday evening, as part of an Asian tour that included stops in Singapore and Malaysia. After South Korea, they will travel to Japan.

On Thursday, Pelosi met South Korean National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin Pyo and other senior members of Parliament for talks on regional security, economic cooperation and climate issues. Before their talks, live TV footage showed Kim and Pelosi bumping elbows and posing for a photo in front of South Korean and U.S. national flags.

Later in the day, Pelosi visited an inter-Korean border area that is jointly controlled by the American-led U.N. Command and North Korea.

She is the highestlevel American to enter the 2½-mile-wide Demilitarized Zone created at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War since thenPresident Donald Trump went there in 2019 for a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Also on Thursday Pelosi spoke by phone with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who is on a vacation this week, according to Yoon’s office. No face-toface meeting has been arranged between them. Yoon, a conservative, took office in May with a vow to boost South Korea’s military alliance with the U.S. and a tougher line on North Korean provocations.