Seoul says Pyongyang’s threats will strengthen cooperation with Washington, Tokyo

Seoul, Aug 21 (EFE).- South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said Monday that the increase in threats from North Korea will only serve to strengthen his country’s cooperation with the United States and Japan on security matters.

Yoon’s remarks came during a Cabinet meeting a day after returning from the United States, where he participated in a trilateral summit with his US and Japanese counterparts, Joe Biden and Fumio Kishida, where they committed to improving their military cooperation and communication.

“The larger North Korea’s threats of provocations become, the more solid the structure of trilateral security cooperation among South Korea, the US and Japan will become,” Yoon said, according to Yonhap news agency.

The South Korean leader added that he believed this trilateral collaboration “will lower the risk of North Korea’s provocations and further strengthen our security.”

The summit resulted in several commitments, including a new security agreement, organizing annual trilateral military maneuvers and a communication hotline.

“Once South Korea, the US and Japan connect the supply chain early warning systems they have been operating individually until now, our supply chain information and resilience level will improve dramatically,” Yoon added.

The comments coincided with the start of the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises between Seoul and Washington, involving some 580,000 officials from some 4,000 government agencies from both countries.

Pyongyang has frequently criticized these exercises, and even conducted weapons tests during or after they are over.

The North Korean regime announced Monday that its leader, Kim Jong-un, has conducted an inspection of a naval unit of the national army and supervised a cruise missile test, in an apparent show of muscle in the face of the joint drills. EFE

co-mra/sc