SEOUL — In a significant diplomatic move, the top nuclear envoys from South Korea, the United States, and Japan came together on Tuesday to express their unified condemnation of North Korea's recent ballistic missile launch.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the missile, believed to be of intermediate-range, was launched earlier that day into the East Sea, marking North Korea's third such military action this year.
The meeting included Lee Jun-il, South Korea's director general for North Korean nuclear affairs, alongside his American and Japanese counterparts, Jung Pak and Hamamoto Yukiya, respectively. The envoys jointly criticized the launch as a grave provocation that undermines the security and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the broader region. They highlighted the act's violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions and underscored the urgency of enhancing trilateral coordination to lead a global response against North Korea's defiance. The missile, launched from the Pyongyang region at 6:53 a.m., traveled approximately 600 kilometers before landing in the East Sea, as confirmed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a briefing to reporters.