Japan, S. Korea discuss DPRK missiles, agree to boost security ties
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This comes in the backdrop of an unsuccessful attempt by the DPRK to put the Malligyong-1 military reconnaissance satellite mounted on the Chollima-1 carrier rocket into orbit.
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South Korean defense chief Lee Jong-sup (left) speaks with Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue Asia security conference in Singapore on Sunday (Kyodo)
Japan's Defense Ministry said on Sunday that the South Korean and Japanese defense ministers agreed on Saturday to develop security cooperation along with the US to track and deter the DPRK's nuclear and missile 'threats.'
Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada met with South Korean counterpart, Lee Jong-sup, at the Shangri-La Dialogue which was held in Singapore.
"Based on the necessity of responding to the severe security environment in the region such as North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats, as well as global challenges, the two Ministers concurred on the importance of promoting Japan-ROK and Japan-ROK-US defense cooperation," the ministry said in a statement.
During their meeting, the two ministers discussed mutual concerns regarding the DPRK's missile launches, noting that they violate relevant UN Security Council resolutions, and agreed that both ministries must develop trusting relations in order to address the situation, along with the trilateral participation US.
This comes in the backdrop of an unsuccessful attempt by the DPRK to put the Malligyong-1 military reconnaissance satellite mounted on the Chollima-1 carrier rocket into orbit.
The Chollima-1 rocket lost thrust and crashed into the sea. Simultaneously, Pyongyang assured that the military satellite is due for launch again this month, considering the launch a "legitimate, self-defensive countermeasure" against increasing threats from the US and its allies, which Pyongyang has accused of increasing tension with their military drills in the region.
Read more: US, Japan, S.Korea eye sharing DPRK missile warning data
The United States, South Korea, and Japan all rushed to the UN to slam the launch, claiming it breached UN resolutions prohibiting the nuclear-armed country from conducting ballistic missile tests.
The UN's under-secretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, took the Security Council to task on Friday for a "lack of unity and action" on DPRK's tests.
In response, DPRK Kim Jong Un's sister Kim Yo Jong tersely stated the UN meeting was another reminder the council was acting as a "political appendage" to "gangster-like" Washington by accepting the latter's "robbery demands" to ignore the country's right to space development.
"I am very unpleased that the UNSC so often calls to account the DPRK's exercise of its rights as a sovereign state at the request of the US," she said in a statement reported by the Korean Central News Agency.
"(I) bitterly condemn and reject it as the most unfair and biased act of interfering in its internal affairs and violating its sovereignty," she added.
She promised to keep launching surveillance satellites, which the DPRK has repeatedly described as vital to balance off the expanding US military presence in the region.
DPRK will never acknowledge UN sanctions resolutions "even if they slap them hundred, thousand times," she said, vowing to "continue to take proactive measures to exercise all the lawful rights of a sovereign state, including the one-to-military reconnaissance satellite launch."
Read more: Washington urges Beijing to influence Pyongyang: Ambassador
