South Korea, U.S., Japan stress trilateral cooperation against North Korea in diplomatic talks

Home > National > North Korea

South Korea, U.S., Japan stress trilateral cooperation against North Korea in diplomatic talks

Published: 10 Oct. 2024, 10:16

North Korea convenes the 11th session of the 14th Supreme People's Assembly from Oct. 7 and 8 in Pyongyang to amend the socialist constitution. [RODONG SIMUN]

Senior diplomats of South Korea, the United States and Japan emphasized the importance of close trilateral cooperation in countering North Korean threats and restarting diplomacy with the recalcitrant regime during their phone talks this week, the State Department said Wednesday.

South Korea's Vice Foreign Minister for Strategy and Intelligence Cho Koo-rae, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink and Hiroyuki Namazu, the director-general for Asian and Oceanian affairs at Japan's foreign ministry, held the talks on Tuesday.

The call came after the North held the 11th session of the 14th Supreme People's Assembly on Monday and Tuesday, during which it revised parts of its socialist constitution and appointed No Kwang-chol, who led the defense ministry in 2018-2019, again as the defense minister to succeed Kang Sun-nam.

"They shared their assessments of the current situation on the Korean Peninsula, including the outcome of the DPRK's Supreme People's Assembly," the department said in a media note, referring to the North by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"In the spirit of the Camp David trilat and the commitment to consult, they underscored the importance of maintaining close trilateral cooperation and consultation in addressing these threats, promoting peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and restarting dialogue and diplomacy with the DPRK," it added.

It was referring to a landmark trilateral summit that South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, U.S. President Joe Biden and then Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida held at the presidential retreat in Maryland in August last year. The summit produced a series of agreements, including the "Commitment to Consult" each other in the event of a shared threat.

The three-way call came as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un threatened recently to use nuclear weapons if his country's "enemies" attempt to use armed forces against it, adding to tensions already heightened by the North's continued launches of trash balloons to South Korea.

Yonhap