The military authorities of South Korea, the United States and Japan held a video conference on Wednesday over the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) sixth nuclear test.
Earlier in the day, working-level defense ministry officials from the three countries held the video conference to share intelligence on the DPRK's latest nuclear test and discuss countermeasures, according to Seoul's Defense Ministry.
Attending the conference were Choi Hyong-chan, director general for international affairs at South Korea's Defense Ministry, David Helvey, acting U.S. assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs, and Satoshi Maeda, director general of the defense policy bureau at Japan's Defense Ministry.
The three officials agreed to continue cooperation in applying maximum pressure on the DPRK to force Pyongyang to give up its nuclear and missile programs and refrain from provocative and threatening acts.
They re-affirmed their commitment to increasing the trilateral interoperability to strengthen deterrence against the DPRK.
During the conference, the U.S. side re-affirmed its "ironclad" security commitment to its South Korean and Japanese counterparts, saying the U.S. extended deterrence commitment would be secured through all categories of military capabilities including conventional and nuclear weapons.
The conference came three days after the DPRK tested what it claimed was a hydrogen bomb warhead that can be loaded onto an intercontinental ballistic missile.
