A former Pentagon official, who took part in drawing up the U.S. Democratic Party policy platform ahead of the November presidential election, reaffirmed that the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula would remain a policy objective if Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is elected.

At a press briefing on Tuesday, Colin Kahl, former undersecretary of defense for policy, said that denuclearization of the peninsula remains an objective of the current Joe Biden administration and, he would assume, of the Harris-Walz administration as well.

Amid concerns over the absence of such a goal in the party platform adopted by delegates at the ongoing Democratic National Convention(DNC), Kahl suggested that people appear to be "overreading" the platform.

The former official said he did not think experts who look at the peninsula see an imminent prospect of denuclearization in the near term, and therefore the near-term priority should be to ensure that the U.S. is upholding its alliance commitments, while strengthening its deterrent.

Kahl said while the Biden-Harris administration believed alliance commitments were part of a steadfast duty, the former Donald Trump administration had viewed allies as subjects from which to extort defense costs, raising concern about the future of U.S. extended deterrence if Trump is reelected.