SINGAPORE: The United States, South Korea and Japan have agreed to share North Korean missile warning data before the end of 2023, the three countries stated in a statement following a Saturday meeting of their defence chiefs in Singapore.
Arab News quoted AFP to say that the statement said 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 to improve each country’s ability to detect and assess missiles launched” by North Korea.
The announcement followed a failed North Korean attempt to launch a spy satellite on Wednesday, which crashed into the sea after a rocket failure.
South Korea’s army said it had managed to locate and salvage some of the suspected debris.
Tokyo, Seoul and Washington slammed the launch, which they said violated a raft of United Nations resolutions barring Pyongyang from any tests using ballistic missile technology.
Pyongyang has doubled down on military development since diplomatic efforts collapsed in 2019, conducting a string of banned weapons tests, including test-firing multiple intercontinental ballistic missiles.
In 2022, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared his country an “irreversible” nuclear power and called for an “exponential” increase in arms production, including nuclear weapons.
