North Korea announced that it would continue missile test sites, saying, “The Pacific Ocean is not U.S. and Japanese territory,” and the U.S. made the Pacific a priority over North Korea contacts, calling the Pacific an area of “Korea-US-Japan joint vision,” approaching the exclusion of South Korea from international negotiations.
On the 7th, Vice Minister of the Workers' Party of Korea Kim Yeo-jeong announced that "the Pacific Ocean does not belong to either the US or Japan," and on the 20th of last month, "The frequency of using the Pacific Ocean as our shooting range depends on the nature of the actions of the US forces." added Japan to
When the Yoon Seok-yeol administration announced normalization of Korea-Japan relations on the 6th, the US State Department said in a welcome commentary on the 6th, “Since the launch of the (Biden) administration, we have been seeking to deepen and develop trilateral relations.” This is because trilateral relations are very important to the vision shared with the two countries.”
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price continued, “In particular, Secretary of State Tony Blincoln, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, and Special Representative for North Korea Sung Kim made 25 tripartite contacts with South Korea and Japan at each level, and President Joe Biden also made such contact at the leadership level. Participated in the engagement,” he said, confirming that the restoration of South Korea-Japan relations was approached as a “pacific strategy” with a priority over the strategy toward North Korea.
"The importance of trilateral cooperation to the challenges posed by North Korea may be mentioned, but (trilateral cooperation) is in some ways broader than that," said Price. What is so important to be effective and seamless is not only for the core challenge that is North Korea and its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, but also for the common vision of a free and open Pacific that the three of us have (not only for the core challenge that is the DPRK and its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, but also for the shared vision our three countries have of a free and open in the Pacific region)”.
The U.S. State Department commentary unusually separated the “nuclear ballistic missile program” from the official name of “North Korea (DPRK),” and distinguished it from the existing “Indo-Pacific” strategy by introducing “Pacific Ocean.”
In a statement on the 6th, North Korean Vice Minister Kim said, "If the DPRK's strategic weapons test, which is conducted without any harm to the safety of neighboring countries in the high seas and airspace not under the jurisdiction of the United States, is accompanied by a military response such as an interception, this will undoubtedly affect the people of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "If a third country tries to intercept the strategic weapon test-fire, which the US military disregards every year while treating the Pacific as its own security, if a third country attempts to intercept it in the name of response, what will the US do? It will be very interesting to see how it will react," said the Pacific as a strategic region.
Vice Minister Kim said in a statement on the 20th of last month that he would “use the Pacific Ocean as a shooting range for North Korea,” and in response, US Indo-Pacific Commander John Aquilino told Consul General Hong Seok-in of Honolulu at Wai on the 24th, “If North Korea fires an ICBM into the Pacific region, it will be immediately We will shoot it down,” the Chosun Ilbo reported on the 5th.
The meeting in Hawaii last month took place on the 24th, right after the South Korea-US-Japan missile defense drill on the 22nd and the Korea-US “nuclear umbrella” on-the-ground drill on the 23rd.
North Korea's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on the 7th in the name of the head of the Foreign Press Office, "The international community joins the peace-loving efforts of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to promote tension reduction on the Korean peninsula and in the region, and expresses a request to the United States and South Korea to immediately stop war exercises. "We strongly regret the irresponsible and worrisome act of armed demonstration by the US and South Korea. We demand an immediate cessation of military hostilities that harm peace and stability on the Korean peninsula," he said. If military provocations continue to be ignored as they are now, there is no guarantee that a violent physical clash will not occur in the Korean Peninsula region, where the vast armed forces of both sides are sharply and closely confronted," he said, separating "regional tension on the Korean Peninsula."
The US State Department's term 'South Korea-US-Japan Joint Vision' seems to be a stabilizing device for 'exclusion of South Korea' in negotiations with North Korea, and North Korea expanded Japan as a negotiating party in the Pacific like the United States.
<See “Sanctions and Diplomatic Separation” to Sullivan North Korea, Department of State’s “Disarmament Negotiations,” December 21, 2021>
Exclusion of South Korea, negotiations with North Korea, North Korea's Kim Yeo-jung, North Korean Foreign Ministry talks, territorial sovereignty, Indo-Pacific Strategy, ballistic missile tests, Pacific Ocean, Korea-US-Japan, Korean Peninsula region