Senior diplomats of South Korea, the United States and Japan held telephone consultations Friday to share information and discuss responses after North Korea launched ballistic missiles. The three countries maintain a channel for prompt information sharing and assessment whenever North Korea fires ballistic missiles. The launches came as South Korea and the U.S. were holding a combined military exercise that North Korea denounced as a rehearsal for war.
North Korea tests a newly developed lightweight multipurpose missile launching system and multiple tactical cruise missile weapon system, developed by the Academy of Defense Sciences, at an unspecified location, June 26, in this file photo released by the North's official Korean Central News Agency. Yonhap
Senior diplomats of South Korea, the United States and Japan held telephone consultations Friday to share information and discuss responses following North Korea's latest ballistic missile launches, Seoul's foreign ministry said.
On Thursday, Pyongyang fired a barrage of short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea amid an ongoing military exercise between South Korea and the U.S., which it has denounced as rehearsals for war.
Baek Yong-jin, director general for Korean Peninsula policy at the ministry, spoke with David Wilezol, deputy assistant secretary for Northeast Asia at the U.S. State Department, and Takashi Ariyoshi, deputy director-general at the Japanese foreign ministry's Asian and Oceanian affairs bureau, earlier in the day, according to the ministry.
