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Updated September 23rd, 2021 at 15:41 IST

Diplomats from US, Japan, SKorea huddle in NY

U.S. Secretary of State met with top diplomats from Japan and South Korea on the sidelines of the United Nations 76th session in New York Wednesday.

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U.S. Secretary of State met with top diplomats from Japan and South Korea on the sidelines of the United Nations 76th session in New York Wednesday.

The meeting between the U.S. and its Asian allies comes days after the United States announced a new alliance including Australia and Britain that would deliver an Australian fleet of at least eight nuclear-powered submarines.

North Korea has criticized the U.S. move and threatened unspecified countermeasures if it finds the deal affects its security.

Nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang have stalled since the collapse of a second Trump-Kim meeting in 2019, when the Americans rejected North Korean demands for major sanctions relief in exchange for dismantling an aging nuclear facility. That would have amounted to only a partial surrender of the North's nuclear capabilities.

The North has continued testing shorter range weapons, threatening U.S. allies South Korea and Japan in an apparent effort to pressure the Biden administration over the stalled diplomacy.

This month, the North tested a new cruise missile it intends to eventually arm with nuclear warheads and demonstrated a new system for launching ballistic missiles from trains.

It came hours before the South reported its first test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile. The dual display of military might highlighted a return of tensions in the region.

Addressing the U.N. General Assembly in person in New York on Tuesday, South Korean President Moon Jae-in reiterated his push for a denuclearized coexistence and “co-prosperity” for the two Koreas.

Seoul and Pyongyang ended the three-year Korean War in a 1953 armistice that halted the fighting but never led to a formal declaration of peace.

 

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Published September 23rd, 2021 at 15:41 IST

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