US Vice President arrives in South Korea

US Vice President Mike Pence arrived in South Korea on Sunday for a high-stakes visit to reaffirm the robust security alliance and warn against North Korea's possible provocations, Yonhap News Agency reported quoting Seoul officials as saying.

Pence's three-day visit here came amid rising tensions, with Pyongyang seen preparing for another nuclear test and Washington sending an aircraft carrier strike group to waters off the Korean Peninsula in a show of force against the wayward regime.

Before his arrival, the communist state further ramped up its saber-rattling by displaying three intercontinental ballistic missiles during a military parade Saturday and launching a missile early Sunday, which ended in failure.

On Monday, Pence, the highest-ranking official of the Donald Trump administration to visit Seoul, was scheduled to meet South Korea's Acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn and National Assembly Speaker Chung Sye-kyun.

During his meeting with Hwang, the two sides are expected to discuss bilateral cooperation in pressuring Pyongyang into changing tack toward denuclearization through sanctions and diplomacy, observers said.

Source: MENA