Military leaders of Asia-Pacific nations agreed that North Korea's nuclear program poses the gravest threat to the region and renewed their commitment to prevent the communist state from developing nuclear weapons, South Korea's top general said Friday.
Top defence officials from 27 nations, including the United States, Japan, Russia and India, met in a five-day Chiefs of Defence (CHOD) conference in Seoul that concluded on Friday.
"The participating nations reached a consensus on the fact that the North Korean nuclear program presents the most serious threat to regional security," Gen. Han Min-koo, chairman of the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), told reporters.
"We also agreed on the need to expand the level of participation by regional players in combined maritime security operations against proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," Han said.
Han did not elaborate what specific actions the military leaders would consider in pressing the North to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
The conclusions by the region's military leaders underscored their commitment to join forces with South Korea against any provocative behaviours by North Korea, JCS officials who were involved in the conference said.
Local press reports, although denied by government officials, said there were indications Pyongyang was preparing for its third nuclear test, citing heavy activities at the site where the North had carried out previous nuclear detonations.
Officials at the South's defence ministry dismissed the reports but said they were keeping a close watch on the movements of vehicles and personnel at the Punggye-ri site in the North's remote northeast.
North Korea, which is believed to have enough weapons-grade plutonium for at least a half dozen bombs, conducted nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.