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SEOUL, Oct. 27-- Visiting U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis said Friday that his country seeks no war, but denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. defense chief arrived in South Korea earlier in the day and visited the Joint Security Area (JSA) at the truce village of Panmunjom on the first day of his two-day trip. During the visit, Mattis said his country's goal was not war but a complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the peninsula, according to local media reports. Mattis said the United States stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the South Korean people to counter threats from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), noting that his country made clear its willingness toward diplomatic solutions to deal with the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula. Inside the JSA, soldiers of South Korea and the DPRK stand face-to-face just meters away from each other. It is Mattis' first visit to Panmunjom inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas. Mattis, who took office in January, made his first trip to South Korea in February, but he did not visit the JSA at the time. His comments on diplomatic solutions came amid escalated tensions on the peninsula. The DPRK conducted its sixth nuclear test in early September and a series of ballistic missile launches in recent months. The war of bombastic rhetoric was exchanged between Pyongyang and Washington. UN Security Council adopted a new resolution toughening sanctions on the DPRK over its sixth and most powerful nuclear detonation. | 
