By Tiffany Williams –

On Friday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner, ROK Deputy Minister for National Defense Policy Kim Man-gi, and Japanese Director General for Defense Policy Masuda Kazuo had a conference call.

During their call they talked about the threat posed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea nuclear missile programs, regional security, and concrete means of strengthening trilateral defense cooperation to bolster security.

The Pentagon says that “The officials reaffirmed the importance of trilateral security cooperation and committed to conduct a Trilateral Defense Ministerial on a mutually determined future date.”