S.Korea, Japan, US to discuss Pyongyang's weapons tests next week

Officials from South Korea, Japan and the US, who are involved in negotiations for nuclear disarmament of the Korean peninsula, are set to meet on April 25 in Tokyo to discuss North Korea's latest weapons tests.

The meet will be attended by South Korea's Kim Hong-kyun and Japan's Kenji Kanasugi while the US will be represented by Joseph Yun, Seoul's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se is also expected to attend the meeting that will discuss the latest arms tests conducted by Pyongyang and frame a joint response, Efe news reported.

They will also discuss whether to send a joint message to the Kim Jong-un regime during the April 28 UN Security Council meeting.

This is the second such trilateral meet since US President Donald Trump assumed office early this year.

The meeting comes at a moment of heightened tension in the peninsula, following US warnings of a pre-emptive strike against North Korea over its repeated missile tests.

The US had also dispatched a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to the region, which had escalated tensions further.

North Korea had carried out a failed mid-range missile test on Sunday, and satellite images of its Punggye-ri nuclear test centre indicate the communist regime could be preparing for a fresh underground nuclear test in the coming days.

--IANS

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