Consultation with allies important part of N. Korea policy review: White House

Published : Mar 28, 2021 - 14:39 Updated : Mar 28, 2021 - 14:39

The captured image from the website of the White House shows press secretary Jen Psaki answering questions in a daily press briefing at the White House in Washington on Friday. (Yonhap)

WASHINGTON -- US efforts to develop a new approach toward North Korea are in their final stages that include consultations with US allies, a White House spokeswoman said Friday, calling consultations an important part of the process.

"We are in the final stages of our intensive, multi-stakeholder North Korea policy review," Jen Psaki told a daily press briefing.

"And we're, of course, discussing our review with national security advisers of South Korea and Japan and our trilateral dialogue coming up next week, and those consultations are an important part of our review process," she added.

The US earlier said National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will host his South Korean and Japanese counterparts in Washington to discuss the outcome of the North Korea policy review, which it says said will provide a new approach to dealing with Pyongyang.

Washington has yet to offer an exact date for the high-profile security talks.

North Korea recently upped the ante by staging its first ballistic missile testing in over a year.

Pyongyang fired two short-range ballistic missiles off its west coast into the East Sea on Thursday (Seoul time), marking a resumption of its short-range ballistic missile testing for the first time since March 2020. The North continues to maintain a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile testing since November 2017.

The US condemned the missile launch as a "destabilizing" action that also violated multiple UN Security Council resolutions that prohibit any testing of ballistic missiles by North Korea.

A UN sanctions committee meeting was set to be held Friday to discuss the North's latest violation of UN sanctions.

Later, a spokesperson for the State Department reiterated the importance of joint efforts by the US and its allies to address the North Korean issue.

"We will just say that President Biden and his national security team are beginning to assess the situation and we know that one of our greatest priorities right now is ensuring that we are on the same page as our allies and partners when it comes to the DPRK," Jalina Porter said at a telephonic press briefing, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. (Yonhap)