Leaders of Japan, U.S., S. Korea to meet over N. Korea

Leaders of Japan, U.S., S. Korea to meet over N. Korea

HAMBURG

The leaders of Japan, the United States and South Korea are set to hold a meeting Thursday at which they are expected to affirm trilateral cooperation in stepping up pressure on North Korea to curb its development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

They are also likely to urge China and Russia to tighten the screws on the North after Pyongyang test-launched Tuesday an intercontinental ballistic missile potentially capable of reaching parts of the United States, a development U.S. President Donald Trump earlier said "won't happen."

Trump will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae In on the sidelines of a two-day meeting of the Group of 20 major economies starting Friday in Hamburg, Germany, in the first trilateral summit since Trump and Moon took office in January and May, respectively.

The three leaders will meet as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his regime will never abandon nuclear weapons and will continue to send the United States more "gift packages" of missile and nuclear tests in what he described as self-defense measures.

North Korea's launch of a first ICBM marked a major step forward in its pursuit of a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike as far as the U.S. mainland. Analysts say the flight details suggest the missile is capable of reaching the U.S. state of Alaska, representing a potentially major shift in the security landscape.

Kim urged officials and scientists to "frequently send big and small 'gift packages' to the Yankees" and said he will push ahead with bolstering the North's nuclear force "unless the U.S. hostile policy and nuclear threat to the DPRK are definitely terminated," the official Korean Central News Agency reported Wednesday.

DPRK is the acronym of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's formal name.

Speaking to reporters in Tokyo on Wednesday, Abe said he will strongly assert at the G-20 summit "the need for the international community to closely coordinate in dealing with North Korea, the threat from which increased with yesterday's ballistic missile launch."

In telephone talks after the ICBM test, nuclear envoys from Japan, the United States and South Korea agreed that "now is not the time for seeking dialogue with North Korea but applying pressure on the country," according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

Pyongyang's latest provocation represented yet another violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions banning it from conducting nuclear and missile activities.

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KYODO.