A source familiar with the matter said that the defense ministers of Japan, South Korea and the United States plan to reach an agreement at an Asian defense summit in Singapore early next month.
South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that the presidential office in Seoul announced that a group would be formed with Japan and the United States to share information on North Korean missiles. However, a Japanese government spokesperson, Matsuno Hirokazu, said no decision has been made yet on the planned agreement, according to MTI.
A senior official also said: The system is currently in the design stage.
A spokesman for the South Korean Ministry of Defense said in a previous press conference: The three countries have held talks on increasing the exchange of information, but nothing has been completed yet.
Washington, Seoul and Tokyo reached an agreement in November to speed up the flow of information after North Korea launched an unprecedented number of ballistic missiles over the past year. Japan and South Korea are in contact with US radar systems, but not with each other. Despite the burden of a colonial past, relations between Seoul and Tokyo have improved significantly in recent months. Japan occupied Korea from 1910 to 1945.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Keseda met South Korean President Jun Sok Yul in Seoul on Sunday to boost defense cooperation between their two countries.
The Defense Ministers of Japan and South Korea are preparing to hold a meeting at the Shangri-La Asian Defense Conference at the IIS to be held in Singapore in early June. This will be the first time since November 2019 that the defense ministers of the two countries will meet.
