Top military officers of S. Korea, US, Japan to meet in Hawaii this week

The top military officers of South Korea, Japan and the United States will meet this week in Hawaii for talks, an informed source here said Monday, following a series of North Korean missile launches that included its first ICBM test in over four years.

Gen. Won In-choul, chairman of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), will meet his US and Japanese counterparts — Gen. Mark Milley and Gen. Koji Yamazaki — on Wednesday, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The planned meeting comes after North Korea fired an ICBM on Thursday (Seoul time), ending its self-imposed moratorium on long-range missile testing that it had maintained since late 2017.

Last week’s missile launch also marked North Korea’s 12th missile test this year, including seven rounds of missile launches in January alone that marked the largest number of missile launches by the North in a single month.

The JCS chiefs of the three countries last met in April 2021 when they visited Hawaii to attend the change-of-command ceremony for Adm. John Aquilino, commander of US Indo-Pacific Command. (Yonhap)