PANMUNJOM, Korea—U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter called on North Korea to shrink and eventually eliminate its nuclear weapons program, while acknowledging during a visit Sunday to the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas that prospects for reconciling with the defiant North are dim.
“For now what we have is what you see beyond us—a very starkly divided and heavily defended border area,” Carter told reporters as he stood on the South Korean side of a marker inside the DMZ that forms the de facto border. Several yards to his rear was the start of North Korea’s portion of the zone, which amounts to a buffer meant to keep the peace even though the two Koreas are technically still at war.
Carter’s first stop near the DMZ was a reminder of long-simmering tensions. His helicopter alighted at Camp Bonifas, named for Arthur Bonifas, an Army captain killed in a DMZ ax attack by North Korean soldiers in August 1976, along with Army 1st Lt. Mark Barrett. Carter was then driven to Observation Post Ouellette, just yards from North Korea’s side; South Korean officers gave him the lay of the land.
