Japanese, US, and South Korean officials condemn the North’s weapons plans but urge dialogue #Japanese #South #Korean #officials #condemn #Norths #weapons #plans #urge #dialogue

TOKYO (AP) — Senior officials from Japan, the U.S. and South Korea condemned North Korea over its recent ICBM-class ballistic missile launches and vowed to step up their trilateral cooperation to strengthen deterrence and sanctions against the North, while stressing the need for dialogue with Pyongyang.

Their meeting Thursday in the central Japanese city of Karuizawa comes days after North Korea’s solid-fuel ICBM launch last week, which landed in the water off the western coast of Japan’s northern main island of Hokkaido and one day after the launch of two missiles on Wednesday.

The U.S. special representative for North Korea, Sung Kim, also said that the United States was “working hard” to gather information about an American soldier who fled to the North earlier this month. The U.S. was seeking to ensure his safety and return him home, Kim said.

UPDATED CAPTION: A group of tourists stand near a border station at Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone in Paju, South Korea, Tuesday, July 18, 2023. Not long after this photo was taken, Travis King, a U.S. soldier, pictured with dark blue shirt and dark cap, fourth left, bolted across the border and became the first known American detained in the North in nearly five years. (AP Photo/Sarah Jane Leslie)

North Korea isn’t responding to U.S. attempts to discuss the American soldier who bolted to the North across the Koreas’ heavily armed border.

Myron Gates, uncle of American soldier Travis King, talks about his nephew, Wednesday, July 19, 2023, in Kenosha, Wis. Pvt. King bolted into North Korea while on a tour of the Demilitarized Zone on Tuesday, July 18, a day after he was supposed to travel to a base in the U.S. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

Family members of the U.S. Army private who sprinted across the border into North Korea say he may have felt overwhelmed as he faced legal troubles and his possible looming discharge from the military.

A group of tourists stand near a border station at Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone in Paju, South Korea, Tuesday, July 18, 2023. Not long after this photo was taken, Travis King, a U.S. soldier, bolted across the border and became the first known American detained in the North in nearly five years. (AP Photo/Sarah Jane Leslie)

Sarah Leslie thought she was witnessing a stunt when she saw an American soldier start sprinting toward North Korea.

FILE - South Korean soldiers look at the North Korean side through binoculars at Dora Observation Post in the demilitarized zone, DMZ, near the border village of Panmunjom that separates the two Koreas since the Korean War, in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, May 27, 2009. A series of low-slung buildings and somber soldiers dot the landscape of the DMZ, the swath of land between North and South Korea where a soldier on a tour crossed into North Korea on Tuesday, July 18, 2023, under circumstances that remain unclear. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)

Blue-roofed huts, a raised slab of concrete and some raked gravel are all that separate the rival Koreas at Panmunjom, a rare point of close contact along the most heavily armed border in the world.

Private 2nd Class Travis King, 23, had been held in South Korea on assault charges and was released on July 10 after serving his time. He was taken to the airport Monday but did not board his flight home. Instead, he joined a tourist trip to the border and bolted to the North Korean side.

Kim said he and his Japanese counterpart, Takehiro Funakoshi, director general of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau at the Foreign Ministry, and South Korea’s Kim Gunn, Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs, were to also discuss their leaders’ summit planned for next month in the United States.

In his opening remarks, Japan’s Funakoshi said Tokyo seeks to further strengthen the three-way security cooperation to enhance deterrence and implement sanctions against the North over its missile advancement in violation to the United Naitons’ Security Council resolutions. However, he also stressed the need for dialogue with the North.

He reiterated that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was willing to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “without any preconditions” to resolve the decades-old issue of North Korea’s abductions of Japanese nationals.

Sung Kim said the United States had “no hostile intent” and that “we are willing and ready to sit down at the negotiating table to work through our differences.”

South Korea’s Kim said the three officials were to affirm their intent for dialogue with North Korea, while discussing ways to strengthen “close communication to bring North Korea back to the path to denuclearization and to encourage China’s constructive role.”

He noted the start of this week’s launch of a nuclear consultation between Seoul and Washington, saying North Korea “undermined its own security”, while its attempt to intimidate the two allies only upgraded their cooperation on nuclear deterrence.

#Japanese #South #Korean #officials #condemn #Norths #weapons #plans #urge #dialogue