SINGAPORE: South Korea and the United States (US) agreed Saturday to jointly examine the wreckage of a purported North Korean space rocket once it is retrieved from the Yellow Sea, Yonhap news agency reported.
South Korean Defence Minister Lee Jong Sup and his US counterpart, Lloyd Austin, reached the agreement during a brief “pull-aside” meeting on the margins of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, as the South Korean military is carrying out a salvage operation to recover the sunken part of the rocket.
“South Korea and the US have agreed on the joint investigation to be conducted once it’s retrieved,“ Lee told reporters on condition of anonymity.
During the meeting, the two sides also reaffirmed the need for attention to follow through with agreements that South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and US President Joe Biden made during their White House summit in April to bolster deterrence against North Korean threats.
The agreements include the establishment of the Nuclear Consultative Group, an entity to discuss nuclear and strategic planning issues, and a US pledge to enhance the “regular visibility” of its strategic assets to South Korea, including a nuclear ballistic missile submarine.
Lee and Austin’s meeting came just before they held trilateral talks with their Japanese counterpart, Yasukazu Hamada, where they agreed to operate a system for sharing real-time North Korean missile warning data within this year.-Bernama
