High-level talks have been held between South Korea, the United States and Japan to discuss cooperation on regional and global issues amid concerns that North Korea might conduct a nuclear test.

And South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported that “Second Deputy Foreign Minister of South Korea Cho Hyung-don held a trilateral meeting with his American counterparts Wendy Sherman and Japan’s Takeo Mori two weeks after US President Joe Biden’s visit to Seoul. and… Tokyo to strengthen the alliance.

Intelligence officials in Seoul and Washington said, “North Korea may have already completed all preparations for its seventh nuclear test.” North Korea conducted its sixth and final nuclear test in 2017.

Those concerns also come amid a spate of northern missile tests, as Pyongyang has conducted 18 missile tests this year, the latest of which was late last week when it launched eight short-range ballistic missiles.

Hours after the eight ballistic missile launches, the nuclear ambassadors of South Korea and the United States held an emergency meeting in Seoul, and Kim Jong-un, Special Representative for Peace and Security on the Korean Peninsula, held talks with his American counterpart, Sun Kim, on the issue during their second face-to-face meeting within two days.