TOKYO (AP) – Japan, the United States (US) and South Korea are negotiating an agreement on sharing real-time data on North Korean missile launches, as cooperation among the three nations becomes increasingly important amid growing nuclear and missile threats from the North, Japan’s chief government spokesperson said on Tuesday.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said there has been no agreement yet, but “I understand that defence authorities are vigorously proceeding to set up an arrangement”.
“The security environment surrounding Japan and South Korea is becoming more severe and more complex, and coordination between the two countries as well as trilaterally with the US has become increasingly important,” Matsuno said.
Japan and South Korea have been separately linked to data from US radar systems but not directly to each other due to difficult relations strained by disputes over history, most recently over South Korean court rulings in 2018 ordering Japanese companies to compensate Korean workers for wartime abuses including forced labour.
Leaders of the three countries agreed last November to speed up information sharing on North Korean ballistic missile launches.
