[Vanier:] The United States top general is now in South Korea to address the looming missile threat from North Korea. Joint Chief Chairman, Joseph Dunford, will meet with South Korea President, Moon Jae-in, to discuss the situation. Also interesting, the U.S. defense secretary and secretary of state wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about the North Korea tensions. Part of it reads, "We're replacing the failed policy of "strategic patience," which expedited the North Korean threat with a new policy of strategic accountability. The object of our peaceful pressure campaign is the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula." They go on to warn that, "Any attack will be defeated, and any use of nuclear weapons will be met with an effective and overwhelming response." CNN's Paula Hancocks joins me now live from Seoul. Let's talk about both of those things, Paula, and let's start with the op-ed. It was just a few days ago that the U.S. president uttered some really unprecedented and war-like remarks, you know, about the military being locked and load, about the fire and the fury. And now a few days later, his top security officials are actually saying, well, we're prioritizing diplomacy.
[Paula Hancocks, Cnn International Correspondent:] Yes. It's interesting, Cyril. I think certainly from here; this is being read as somewhat of a pullback or a confirmation that actually diplomacy comes first. All this talk about military options, all the fairly bellicose rhetoric we heard from the U.S. President, Donald Trump, about the military options being locked and loaded. That has appeared to be tempered somewhat with this op-ed that we saw from the two top diplomats because they are focusing on the fact that they want diplomatic and economic reforms to work. They want these issue to actually get them to the point of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Now, of course, whether or not North Korea is willing to give up its nukes, we know full-well that they have no intention of doing so, at least that's what they've said publicly. But what we're hearing from the U.S. side now is at least that, that they want to focus more on sanctions, they want to focus on the troops sorry, the alliances around the region, and to make sure that the region knows that the U.S. is on the same page as Japan and South Korea, and in some ways as China that diplomacy comes first. But of course, they also specify that the military option is there, Cyril.
[Vanier:] Yes. As if underlying that, the top U.S. general just landed in Seoul. What is going to be discussing with the South Koreans?
[Hancocks:] That's right. Yes, General Joseph Dunford is here in Seoul. He's just met with the South Korea defense minister. He's also going to meet with his Korean counterpart. Later today, he'll meet with the South Korean President Moon Jae-in, and we expect some kind of a readout press conference after that. What we're hearing from the Defense Ministry, certainly in the press briefing this morning was that they wanted to make sure that they discuss the topic of deterring and effectively responding against the North Korean's nuclear and military threat very general terms. They will be talking about North Korea. They will certainly, from the South Korean's side, be hoping to hear from General Dunford that the alliance is strong that the South Koreans will have a say in what happens if there is any kind of response to North Korea. Certainly, that's been the concern in the past that put the U.S. unilaterally at, and with this kind of meetings, it does
[Vanier:] Paula Hancocks, reporting live from Seoul, South Korea. Thank you very much. And the war of words between the U.S. and North Korea reached a fever-pitch as we were saying this past week. But at the Korean DMZ, the Demilitarized Zone, an international group of musicians are trying to send a different message. Alexandra Field has more on their mission for peace.
[Alexandra Field, Cnn International Correspondent:] If the sound carries beyond these walls
[Patrick Sanguineti, Harvard-radcliffe Orchestra:] You look around over these mountains after this, it is really a beautiful place.
[Field:] It will take you to a beautiful place, and estranged place.
[Sanguineti:] Before coming here, like, this seemed like a really scary place. I mean, with the barbed wire, like the tank traps.
[Field:] A dark place.
[Sanguineti:] They tell you not to hop the fence, you know, don't do anything stupid. You know, the reality is that it is there is like a lot of anxiety heads up here.
[Field:] Mostly though, there is the pain they've known almost forever now.
[Unidentified Female:] My heart is boom, boom, boom, boom. Why we can't go there? Part of my heart; it's something very painful.
[Field:] The idea seemed like a stretch. A senior choir, a South Korean youth orchestra, a group of Harvard students in concert, during the time of rapidly rising tension right on the edge of North Korea.
[Sanguineti:] This is really scary for a lot of people not just us. Our own family was contacting us, making sure that we're OK with what's actually going to happen.
[Field:] As the war of words between the U.S. and North Korea gets ever wilder, for a moment, they're drowning the North. Why are you singing at the DMZ?
[Unidentified Male:] We wish for you know, to send our wishes to the North. Our wishes for reunification. That is my dream and my choir's dream as well.
[Field:] They can't go any further than this. This is one of the most heavily fortified border areas in the world. The Demilitarized Zone cuts the Korean Peninsula in half. It's 160 miles long; it's two and a half miles wide. And that's been enough to keep families permanently ripped apart. Bae Yung-Ja feels close to her husband's family in the North when she's here. She never met them, and she's already lost him.
[Unidentified Female:] Before I die, I want to hear something useful from his family.
[Field:] When the choir and the orchestra walked outside, she's looking in the right direction.
[Unidentified Female:] Music is the one way. Why can't we be together?
[Field:] For Grant Riew, who came from Harvard to be here, it's already that.
[Grant Riew, Harvard-radcliffe Orchestra:] Music is, actually, a universal language. And so, you can come to Korea. I don't speak any Korean, but I am Korean and I can sit down with all these people and be able to make music together. And you know, it's really something that everyone can personally relate to. There are some like 80-year- old people in the choir, and there's like 10-year-old children that we're playing with.
[Sanguineti:] When we started playing these folk songs, this traditional music, I had heard
[Field:] The finale is this song composed in the North when the Korea's were still one. If the sound could carry, these musicians hope it would travel back there. Alexandra Field, CNN, at the DMZ.
[Vanier:] Marking 70 years of independence and a high-priced pay for it the anniversary of India's partition after the break, stay with us.