SEOUL, March 24 (UPI) — South Korea, the United States and Japan agreed Friday to maintain close cooperation against North Korea‘s maritime activity prohibited under U.N. Security Council resolutions despite a peace mood on the peninsula.
The regional powers will also improve joint response capabilities by continuing missile warning, maritime interdiction operations and anti-submarine warfare drills, according to South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense.
The ministry was summarizing the results of the 10th Defense Trilateral Talks, a working-level consultation held in Washington D.C. earlier this week.
“In order to curb, thwart and eventually eradicate North Korea’s illegal maritime activity, including illicit shipment, the three countries have decided to continue a pivotal role in multilateral coordination efforts to ensure the implementation of related U.N. Security Council resolutions,” the ministry said.
They urged the North to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programs in a complete, verifiable and irreversible way.
They also welcomed the announcements of back-to-back summits involving the two Koreas and the U.S.
In the DTT, South Korea was represented by Yeo Suk-joo, policy chief at the Ministry of National Defense. His American and Japanese counterparts were Randall Schriver, assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs, and Masami Oka, deputy director general of the defense policy bureau at the defense ministry.
