US, Japan, S. Korea to Denuclearize Korean Peninsula - Obama

Teams from the United States, South Korea and Japan will begin taking additional steps to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and restore stability in the region, US President Barack Obama said after a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Thursday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Obama explained the three leaders had agreed that "trilateral security cooperation" was essential to maintaining peace in northeast Asia as well as deterring the nuclear threat posed by North Korea.

"We've directed our teams to work diligently in the coming weeks and months to elaborate additional steps that we can take collectively in order to ensure that we have a denuclearized Korean Peninsula and that we can restore a sense of stability and peace to the region," Obama said after the meeting on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, DC.

The meeting came as top officials from more than 50 countries are gathering in Washington, DC for the forth Nuclear Security Summit that will last until Friday.

Obama also noted the three leaders had recognized it is important for the "entire international community to vigilantly enforce" UN security measures passed after North Korea conducted a nuclear weapon and ballistic missile tests.

In January, Pyongyang said it successfully carried out a hydrogen bomb test, while in February a ballistic missile test. Earlier in March, North Korea launched five short-range missiles that landed in the Sea of Japan, which has become Pyongyang's third missile power test.