TOKYO – The defense ministers of South Korea, the United States, and Japan are scheduled to meet in Tokyo next week to deliberate on enhancing trilateral security cooperation amid increasing North Korean nuclear and missile threats.
The South Korean defense ministry announced that Defense Minister Shin Won-sik, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara will evaluate regional security dynamics and discuss methods to strengthen their collaborative security efforts. The meeting is a response to North Korea's provocative use of trash-carrying balloons, which are seen as retaliatory actions against anti-Pyongyang leaflets sent by North Korean defectors in South Korea. In retaliation, South Korea has resumed full-scale anti-Pyongyang broadcasts across its border loudspeakers. The trilateral talks, set for Sunday, will also include separate bilateral discussions between the defense chiefs of South Korea and the U.S., as well as South Korea and Japan. This meeting follows their last interaction at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in June, where they confirmed their commitment to intensified security cooperation and concluded the trilateral multidomain Freedom Edge exercise.