US, South Korea, Japan to work together on North Korea denuclearisation

National security officials from the three nations meet in Maryland as Biden administration puts finishing touches to its policy on Pyongyang

Sides agree ‘on the imperative for full implementation of relevant UN Security Council resolutions … preventing proliferation, and cooperating to strengthen deterrence and maintain peace and stability on the Korean peninsula’

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The meeting of national security officials from the US, South Korea and Japan came after Pyongyang fired two ballistic missiles into the sea last month. Photo: AP

Published: 12:18pm, 3 Apr 2021Updated: 12:34pm, 3 Apr 2021

The United States, South Korea and Japan on Friday committed to “concerted trilateral cooperation” to achieve the denuclearisation of North Korea, as the Joe Biden administration inched closer to completing a review of its policy on the hermit state.

The commitment came in the form of a joint statement following a meeting of senior national security officials from the three countries at the United States Naval Academy in Maryland, one of the country’s oldest military schools.

The face-to-face talks came a week after North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the ocean in violation of United Nations sanctions – a move that was seen as an early test for the Biden administration.

In the statement, the officials said they had “agreed on the imperative for full implementation of relevant UN Security Council resolutions by the international community, including North Korea, preventing proliferation, and cooperating to strengthen deterrence and maintain peace and stability on the Korean peninsula”.

Representing the US was national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who hosted South Korea’s national security office director Suh Hoon and Japan’s national security secretariat secretary general Shigeru Kitamura.

Besides airing their concerns about North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, the officials discussed “the importance of reuniting separated Korean families and the swift resolution of the abductions issue”, the statement said, referring to Pyongyang’s kidnapping of Japanese nationals to train spies in the 1970s and 80s.