South Korea and the U.S. have made “meaningful progress” toward the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) to Seoul, according to the top military officers of the two countries, who also pledged continued efforts to meet the conditions required for the handover and to strengthen their combined defense posture against North Korean threats.

Gen. Jin Young-seung, chairman of the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and his U.S. counterpart Gen. Dan Caine, made the assessment during the 50th ROK-U.S. Military Committee Meeting (MCM) in Seoul, according to an ROK JCS press release on Monday.

The annual assessments measure progress toward