Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back and U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will visit the Joint Security Area in the heavily fortified demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas on Monday.

This will mark the first joint trip by the defense chiefs of the two countries to the area since October 2017, when then Defense Minister Song Young-moo and then U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis visited together.

Hegseth is set to arrive in South Korea on Monday to attend the 57th Security Consultative Meeting between the two nations, with the visit scheduled as his first engagement.

During the visit, Ahn and Gegseth are expected to send a message wishing for peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Separately, Jin Young-seung, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff(JCS), and his U.S. counterpart, John Daniel Caine, will hold the 50th Korea-U.S. Military Committee Meeting at the JCS headquarters in Seoul on Monday.