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The United States will stress the Washington-Seoul security alliance during President Barack Obama's visit to the fortified border on the Korean Peninsula, a White House official has said, as tension aroused by Pyongyang's planned satellite launch tested Washington-Pyongyang ties. US Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes confirmed on Tuesday that the US president's first visit to the Demilitarized Zone along the Korean border would take place sometime next week. The main points of Obama's visit would be to show support for the more than 28,000 US troops serving in the Republic of Korea and to stress the US security alliance with the ROK, Rhodes said. Cutting the Korean Peninsula roughly in half, the DMZ is heavily armed by both the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the ROK, with forces from the two countries aligning against each other. In 2010, 46 ROK sailors were killed by the DPRK's artillery attack on a border island, after the sinking of their warship, the Cheonan. Following his predecessors, Obama would probably address his country's troops stationed in the DMZ, said Zhang Liangui, an expert on Korean Studies at the Party School of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. The DPRK would surely verbally fight back over Obama's address, Zhang said. But the visit would have limited influence over US-DPRK ties and the situation on the Korean Peninsula, he added. | 
