The defense authorities of South Korea, the U.S. and Japan held a video teleconference on Tuesday and agreed to closely coordinate with each other and continue their related intelligence sharing activities in response to North Korea’s missile threats.
 
According to Seoul’s Ministry of National Defense, the U.S. reaffirmed during the teleconference its ironclad commitment to defend South Korea and Japan, adding Washington wants to work closely with the two regional allies as well as the international community to deal with the North’s provocative actions.
 
Park Cheol-kyun, deputy director general for the ministry’s International Policy Bureau, participated in the teleconference, along with his U.S. and Japanese counterparts: Christopher Johnstone, principal director for East Asia at the U.S. Department of Defense; and Koji Kano, principal director of defense policy bureau at the Japan Ministry of Defense.
 
The three representatives strongly denounced the North’s launch of a ballistic missile on Sunday, calling it a clear violation of the UN Security Council resolutions.
 
They also emphasized that the North’s illegal missile program is posing a grave and steady threat to the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia.
 
The videoconference, which lasted for an hour, was the first of its kind among the three countries since the inauguration of the Trump administration last month. 

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