The foreign ministers of Japan, China, and South Korea on Wednesday condemned the firing of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) by North Korea, in a rare gesture of accord after a spate of sharp tensions.

They also pledged to try to bring their leaders together for a trilateral summit by the end of the year, a time frame that suggests some of the worst discord may be in the past.

But they stopped short of issuing a joint statement following the meeting. The Japanese side shrugged that off, saying it would have wasted valuable discussion time to pick over the wording.