Nuclear consultative group likely to meet soon: Envoy

Korean Ambassador to the United States Cho Hyun-dong speaks during a press conference with reporters in Washington on Wednesday. [NEWS1]

The inaugural meeting of a new Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) between South Korea and the United States will likely be held soon amid continued concerns over North Korea's threats, according to Seoul's top diplomat to Washington on Wednesday.

"In a situation where North Korea has declared it will launch a second reconnaissance satellite after the failed launch in May, South Korea and the United States are sharing related trends and coming up with countermeasures," Korean Ambassador to the United States U.S. Cho Hyun-dong told reporters in a briefing at the Korean Cultural Center in Washington.

"The discussions for the first meeting of the NCG between South Korea and the United States, through the Washington Declaration in April, are making progress in the face of North Korean threats."

This comes amid Seoul officials indicating that the first NCG meeting can take place as early as next month.

On April 26, President Yoon Suk Yeol and U.S. President Joe Biden signed the Washington Declaration during their bilateral summit which created the NCG, a planned consultative body of officials from both countries designed to strengthen extended deterrence against threats from North Korea through enhanced dialogue and information sharing on nuclear strategy.

The two countries' National Security Councils (NSC) are expected to play a leading role in the final coordination ahead of the meeting likely to be held in July.

Cho said the two countries are holding close discussions on international issues around the clock, such as the recent rebellion in Russia by the Wagner mercenary group and North Korean provocations, noting that there is "strategic communication and discussions" between South Korea and the United States on such major issues.

He said that the Korean Embassy in Washington, the White House NSC, and the U.S. State Department "communicated and discussed issues closely 24-7, regardless of weekdays or holidays."

The South Korean government is closely communicating with the United States on the Russia situation as it is likely to affect the arms trade between North Korea and the Wagner Group.

This comes amid expectations that the leaders of South Korea, Japan and the United States could meet as early as this summer in Washington.

Cho said such a trilateral summit in Washington, as proposed by Biden, "is also being pursued."

In a brief trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Group of 7, or G7, Summit in Hiroshima in May, Biden invited Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to Washington for another three-way summit.

If this meeting comes about, it will be the first time that the three countries would be gathered for a standalone trilateral summit rather than as a pull-aside meeting on the sidelines of other multilateral events. It is expected that the North Korean nuclear issue will be one of the main agenda in such a trilateral summit.

Although Tokyo's participation in Seoul and Washington's NCG, or the possibility of forming a separate extended deterrence consultative body among the three countries has been raised, officials said there have been no detailed discussions on this issue yet.

Kurt Campbell, the U.S. NSC Indo-Pacific coordinator, likewise referred Biden's invitation for a trilateral summit in a video message to a peace forum hosted by the Korean Unification Ministry and Yonhap News Agency in Seoul on Thursday.

Such a meeting, he said, will "celebrate the remarkable progress that's been made in the bilateral relationship between Japan and South Korea" and be an opportunity to "see what steps we can take to make sure we lock that progress in" and review areas of possible trilateral cooperation going forward.

BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]