Defense minister Shin Won-sik said that North Korea may be considering a nuclear test around the U.S. presidential election in November.

The minister made the remarks during an interview with Bloomberg News on Monday, while visiting Tokyo for talks with his American and Japanese counterparts, Lloyd Austin and Minoru Kihara.

Shin reportedly said that North Korea has completed preparations to conduct a nuclear test when a decision is made, adding he cannot rule out the possibility of, that decisive moment being right before or after the U.S. presidential election to raise its leverage against the U.S.

South Korea and the U.S. have suggested multiple times that North Korea has completed preparations for a nuclear test and it is ready to conduct the test at any time. 

In a press conference after talks with the defense chiefs from U.S. and Japan, Shin stressed that security cooperation among the three nations will continue regardless of the outcome of the U.S. election. 

On Sunday, the three defense chiefs signed the Memorandum of Cooperation on the Trilateral Security Cooperation Framework(TSCF) to institutionalize trilateral security cooperation against North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.