ON Tuesday, South Korea’s ministry of foreign affairs said Seoul and Tokyo held their first bilateral disarmament and non-proliferation consultations in 5 years, exhorting North Korea to promptly abort its plan to launch a military spy satellite.

South Korea’s Director-general for nuclear non-proliferation and diplomatic planning Park Young-Hyo, and Atsushi Kaifu director-general of the Japanese foreign ministry’s disarmament non-proliferation and science department, met in Jeju Island on Monday.

South Korea and Japan both expressed concerns about North Korea’s heightened nuclear threat and its plan to launch a spy satellite in the coming weeks, Seoul’s foreign ministry said.

The two countries urged North Korea to abort its planned launch, saying it is a serious violation of UN security council resolutions which prohibits launches of ballistic missiles technology.

Moreover, both sides discussed ways to beef up cooperation to the international disarmament and non-proliferation regime.

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