Seoul, Dec 7 – South Korea, the US and Japan held their first trilateral working-level talks on Thursday on ways to boost cooperation against North Korea’s growing cyber threats, in a follow-up to the summit among their leaders in August, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.
The talks in Tokyo were led by Lee Jun-il, the Ministry’s director-general for North Korean nuclear affairs, US Deputy Special Representative for North Korea Jung Pak and Ishizuki Hideo, Japan’s ambassador in charge of cyber policy.
The dialogue was launched as part of a follow-up to an agreement reached among President Yoon Suk Yeol, US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during their Camp David summit to beef up tripartite cooperation in security and establish a working group tasked with combating North Korea’s cyber threats, Yonhap news agency reported.
During Thursday’s meeting, the three sides discussed ways to counter North Korea’s cryptocurrency theft, and other illegal cyber activities aimed at financing its nuclear and missile development programs.
They also agreed to boost cooperation with the international community and the private sector to block illegal North Korean workers in the IT sector, the Ministry said in a press statement.