Summary
· The announcement followed a North Korean attempt to launch a spy satellite that ended with it crashing into the sea after a rocket failure earlier in the week, the latest in a string of banned tests conducted by Pyongyang
Singapore. The United States, Japan and South Korea aim to share North
Korean missile warning data before the end of 2023, the three countries said in
a statement following a Saturday meeting of their defence chiefs in Singapore.
The announcement followed a North
Korean attempt to launch a spy satellite that ended with it crashing into the
sea after a rocket failure earlier in the week, the latest in a string of
banned tests conducted by Pyongyang.
The three sides "recognised
trilateral efforts to activate a data sharing mechanism to exchange real-time
missile warning data before the end of the year in order to improve each
country's ability to detect and assess missiles launched" by North Korea,
their joint statement said.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin
and his Japanese and South Korean counterparts Yasukazu Hamada and Lee Jong-sup
met on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue defence summit.
They "discussed the growing
nuclear and missile threats from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
(DPRK) as well as efforts to enhance trilateral security exercises and address
common security challenges in the Indo-Pacific region", the statement
said.
South Korea's defence ministry said
in a separate statement that they "committed to making further progress in
the coming months towards the activation of a real-time sharing mechanism for
missile warning information".
Hamada told a news conference the
initiative "will improve the ability of countries to detect and assess the
threat of missiles launched by North Korea, and we will work firmly to achieve
this as soon as possible".
A senior US defence official said
ahead of the announcement that the planned data sharing is ultimately about
"strengthening trilateral cooperation, which we believe is in all three of
our countries' interests, which we believe strengthens deterrence, and which we
believe also institutionalises this cooperation".
'Grave danger'
Seoul, Tokyo and Washington all
slammed the failed North Korean satellite launch, which they said violated a
raft of UN resolutions barring Pyongyang from any tests using ballistic missile
technology.
South Korea's military said it had
managed to locate and salvage a portion of the suspected debris in a potential
intelligence bonanza.
North Korea does not have a
functioning satellite in space and leader Kim Jong Un has made developing a
military spy satellite a top priority, despite UN resolutions barring its use
of such technology.
Because long-range missiles and
rockets used for space launches share the same technology, analysts say
developing the ability to put a satellite in orbit would provide Pyongyang with
cover for testing its banned intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
Before the failed launch, Pyongyang
had launched five satellites since 1998. Three failed immediately and two
appeared to have been put into orbit.
North Korea has doubled down on
military development since diplomatic efforts collapsed in 2019, conducting a
string of prohibited weapons tests, including test-firing multiple ICBMs.
Kim last year declared his country
an "irreversible" nuclear power and called for an
"exponential" increase in weapons production, including tactical
nuclear weapons.
The North's weapons of mass
destruction and ballistic missile programmes "pose a grave threat to
international peace and stability", the United States, Japan and South
Korea said in their statement.
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