But the vice president expressed impatience with the unwillingness of North Korea to move toward ridding itself of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
The North Korea situation makes military cooperation particularly crucial, Japanese Defence Minister Tomomi Inada told Australian counterpart Marise Payne when they met yesterday ahead of the talks.
Reclusive North Korea regularly threatens to destroy Japan, South Korea and the United States and has shown no let-up in its belligerence after a failed missile test on Sunday, which followed a huge display of missiles at a parade in Pyongyang.
Tensions are running high around the Korean Peninsula amid speculation that the North might carry out an additional nuclear test or a long-range missile launch.
Russia’s deputy ambassador Petr Iliichev told reporters Thursday morning that the US acted in an “abrupt manner” and insisted that Moscow didn’t block the statement and was open to discussions.
In the same press conference, spokesman Lu Kang praised recent United States statements on the North Korean issue.
“We are evaluating all of those options”, he said.
US President Donald Trump has been pressing China to rein in North Korea, suggesting that doing so could ease US-China relations over trade and other issues.
Diplomats said Pyongyang ally China had agreed to the statement.
South Korea’s Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se is expected to join the meeting. “Through this exercise, I am sure we can deter war and remove our enemy’s intention to provoke us”.
The US, meanwhile, has conducted missile defense drills with the South Korean and Japanese navies, sent its newest F-35 stealth fighters to train in South Korea, flown B-1 bombers to South Korea, and just Thursday commenced “Max Thunder“, billed as the second-largest military flying exercise between US and South Korean forces.
The language on North Korea’s nuclear program was more straightforward.
“Speaking with one voice is extremely important to the Security Council appropriately responding to the relevant issue on the peninsula”, he told reporters.
Russian Federation blocked the release of the statement, a Security Council diplomat said.
The 15-member Security Council traditionally condemns all launches by Pyongyang.
Noting Trump’s recent military actions in Syria and Afghanistan, Pence said, “North Korea would do well not to test his resolve”, or the US armed forces in the region.
“We took note that the proposed text contained some language that was not previously agreed in the standard press statements on the condemnation of DPRK’s missile launches”, the Permanent Mission of Russian Federation to the United Nations said, without revealing what words had been added by the USA delegation.
The U.S. military’s Pacific Command explained that the USS Carl Vinson strike group first had to complete a shorter-than-planned period of training with Australia.
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