S Korea, Japan reaffirm pledge to denuclearize Korean peninsula

SEOUL

The defense ministers of South Korea and Japan reaffirmed on Sunday their countries’ commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, despite Pyongyang’s repeated pledges to expand its nuclear arsenal.

The meeting comes after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to strengthen his country’s defense capabilities, including equipping its navy with nuclear weapons and pressing ahead with missiles testing.

South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back held talks with his Japanese counterpart, Shinjiro Koizumi, in Seoul, during which the two agreed to explore ways to deepen defense cooperation.

Seoul and Tokyo are both security allies of Washington, but cooperation between their militaries has been hampered by historical tensions stemming from Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula in the early 20th century.

But the two “reaffirmed their commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the establishment of lasting peace, and agreed to continue bilateral cooperation, as well as trilateral cooperation among South Korea, Japan and the United States,” Seoul’s Defense Ministry said in a statement released after the bilateral meeting.

The meeting also came weeks after the two neighbors held their first joint maritime search-and-rescue exercise in nine years, a move widely seen as another step towards closer defense cooperation.