S.Korea, US, Japan hold talks amid speculation on N.Korea nuke test

Senior diplomats of South Korea, the US and Japan held high-level talks on Wednesday on regional and global security issues amid concerns over the possibility of a North Korean nuclear test.

South Korea's First Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun-dong held the trilateral session with his American and Japanese counterparts -- Wendy Sherman and Takeo Mori -- in Tokyo to discuss ways to deal with North Korea's evolving threats highlighted by a series of ballistic missile launches in recent weeks, reports Yonhap News Agency.

This week's session came amid rampant speculation that the Kim Jong-un regime may soon press ahead with another nuclear test and carry out additional provocative acts.

Officials in Seoul say the secretive North is apparently all set for its first nuclear test since September 2017.

The previous tripartite meeting of the diplomats took place in Seoul in June.

North Korea fired nearly a dozen ballistic missiles in just three weeks from late September, bringing the total number of ballistic missiles it launched this year to 44, the largest number of ballistic missiles fired in a single year.

Earlier this month, the reclusive country fired hundreds of artillery shots into the maritime buffer zones in the East and Yellow seas that were set under a 2018 inter-Korean agreement on reducing military tensions.