Mike Pence has met with Fred Warmbier, the father of the late Otto Warmbier, in South Korea ahead of the Winter Olympics.

The Vice President sat down with Warmbier alongside four North Korean defectors at the Cheonan Memorial in Pyeongtaek, which honors the 46 South Korean sailors killed in a 2010 torpedo attack attributed to the North.

Included in that number was Ji Seong-ho, who received a standing ovation when he featured in Trump's State of the Union address.

Speaking at the meeting, Pence warned that the world would see 'a charm offensive by North Korea' on Friday, shortly before Kim Jong Un's sister arrived to a flurry of media attention.

'But we thought it was important to make sure the truth is told,' he added.

US Vice President Mike Pence has met with Fred Warmbier - the father of the late Otto Warmbier - in South Korea ahead of the Winter Olympics

'As these people and their lives testify, it is a regime that imprisons, and tortures, and impoverishes its citizens,' he added.

Pence said last week that he had invited Warmbier to attend the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang on Friday as his personal guest.

Warmbier's son Otto was sentenced to 15 years of prison hard labor in North Korea after being found guilty of stealing a propaganda poster from his hotel in Pyongyang while visiting as a tourist.

He served just 17 months of that sentence before his comatose body was handed back to US officials and flown home, where he died shortly afterward.

Post mortem examinations show Warmbier suffered severe brain damage while in North Korean custody, but the cause remains a mystery.

The regime officially blamed botulism, and while doctors in America found no trace of the disease in his system, they could provide no alternative explanation. They said it does not appear that he was tortured.

Pence's decision to bring his father to the games is sure to be seen in Pyongyang as a very provocative move.

North Korea has already said it is not interested in meeting Pence while he is in South Korea, and likewise Pence said he has not scheduled any meetings with their delegation, which also includes Kim Yong Nam, the North's ceremonial leader.

Washington has been stepping up its anti-Pyongyang rhetoric while the North has been trying to use the Olympics as an opportunity to ease tensions with the South.

Some see Pyongyang's conciliatory gestures toward Seoul as a calculated move to drive a wedge between the US and its ally.

If that's the case, it may already be paying off for Kim Jong Un.

Pence and Warmbier were pictured together at the Navy's 2nd Fleet Command in Pyeongtaek, South Korea on Friday where they met with several North Korean defectors

Warmbier hugged one defector, Ji Seong-ho, tightly after they met. Fred is in South Korea after being invited as Pence's guest to the opening ceremony

In response to a North Korean request, Seoul has agreed to postpone annual military maneuvers with the US until after the games are over and has asked for some sanctions to be waived so that more contacts and exchanges with the North can be made.

Pence, meanwhile, is taking a decidedly hard-line approach.

Before departing Japan for Korea earlier Thursday, Pence warned that past attempts to pursue openings with the North have been met with 'willful deception, broken promises, and endless and escalating provocations.'

He also ratcheted up his rhetoric on the North's human rights abuses in a speech to U.S. service members at Yokota Air Base in Japan.

'As we speak, an estimated 100,000 North Korean citizens labor in modern-day gulags,' Pence said.

'Those who dare raise their voices in dissent are imprisoned, tortured, and even murdered, and their children and grandchildren are routinely punished for their family's sins against the state.'

Pence also has promised the U.S. will soon unveil 'the toughest and most aggressive round of economic sanctions on North Korea ever.'

Pence also met Thursday with South Korean President Moon Jae-in to press for a more clear-eyed approach toward the nuclear-armed neighbor to the north.

Moon has looked at the games as an opportunity to pursue a diplomatic opening with North Korea - a move the vice president cautioned against.

Pence avoided public criticism of Moon, congratulating South Korea on hosting the games and pledging continued support in addressing the North's nuclear threat.

But privately, officials said, Pence expressed concern to Moon about his more conciliatory tone toward North Korea.

Moon, for his part, took the opportunity to highlight the visit of North Korean officials to the global competition, referring to the 'Olympic Games of peace.'

He added his hope that it becomes 'a venue that leads to dialogue for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.'

Warmbier's son Otto was the University of Virginia student from Ohio who was held in North Korean custody for 17 months for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster

Officials said Otto mysteriously suffered brain damage before he was returned to the US (above being carried off a plane) last year and died just days later

Fred and Cindy Warmbier were special guests at President Trump's State of the Union address

Aides acknowledged that the vice president's cynical message is an unusual one for Pence, but said the circumstances warrant the tone.

US officials have grown increasingly dire in their warnings about the North's march toward developing an operational nuclear-tipped ballistic missile capable of reaching the continental U.S.

Pence told reporters that despite disagreements over how to approach North Korea, the state of the alliance between the U.S. and South Korea is 'strong.'

Administration officials said they had long expected the North would seek to use the Olympics, taking place just 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the heavily-mined Demilitarized Zone dividing the Koreas, as an opportunity to put a softer face on the regime, and painted Pence's visit as a counterbalance to those efforts.

At the same time, the vice president has deliberately left the door open to a possible encounter with North Korean officials expected to be in attendance.

On Wednesday, the North announced that Kim Yo Jong, the sister of dictator Kim Jong-un, would attend the games, joining the country's nominal head of state, Kim Yong Nam.

A top North Korean official seemed to rule out a potential meeting with U.S. officials in the North's state-run media on Thursday, but Pence suggested to reporters that it was still a possibility.

'We haven't requested a meeting with North Korea, but if I have any contact with them - in any context - over the next two days, my message will be the same as it was here today: North Korea needs to once and for all abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile ambitions,' Pence said.