Japan, South Korea and the United States are arranging to hold working-level defense talks in Washington in mid-April to pave the way for enabling real-time information sharing about North Korea's ballistic missile launches, a government source said Wednesday.
Last year, the leaders of the three countries agreed to take steps to swiftly share information about Pyongyang's missile launches, but they have yet to begin a full-fledged discussion due to fraught ties between Tokyo and Seoul.
On Monday, however, South Korea announced its solution to a wartime labor compensation dispute with Japan, prompting the three nations to accelerate their defense cooperation to tackle growing security threats from the North, the source said.