Senior defense officials from the U.S., ROK and Japan agreed to strengthen information sharing and security cooperation to deter North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats and promote regional peace, according to a joint statement issued following their latest talks.

At the 13th Defense Trilateral Talks (DTT) in Washington on Friday, U.S. assistant secretary of defense Ely Ratner, South Korean deputy defense minister Heo Tae-keun and Japanese director general of defense policy Kazuo Masuda strongly condemned Pyongyang's repeated violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions, including its nuclear and missile “provocations” and illicit ship-to-ship transfers.