A senior U.S. State Department official said Friday that there will be no meetings with North Korea on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in Indonesia next week.

U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs Daniel Kritenbrink said in a briefing that Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Indonesia next Thursday and Friday to attend the regional forum. He will underscore the strength of ironclad U.S. security commitments to its treaty allies South Korea and Japan. 

Blinken will also reaffirm Washington's determination to counter the threat posed by North Korean nuclear and missile programs and commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

He also added there are no plans to meet with North Korean officials at the ARF.

Key topics at the regional meeting are expected to include the South China Sea dispute, the war in Ukraine, the crisis in Myanmar and economic cooperation. 

North Korea is also a member of the ARF and its ambassador to ASEAN​, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, An Kwang-il, attended the forum for the past three years instead of its foreign minister. 

Kritenbrink said the U.S. remains open to engagement and diplomacy with the North but the only response it received from Pyongyang has been an increase in missile testing. 

As such, he said the U.S. will continue to take the steps to defend itself and its treaty allies and continue to strictly enforce a range of U.N. Security Council resolutions and implement its own sanctions designed to counter the threat.