S. Korea, US, Japan to Take Punitive Action against N. Korea's Provokes

Senior officials of South Korea, the United States and Japan agreed at a meeting in Tokyo on Tuesday to take unbearably strong punitive action against North Korea if the communist country launches a fresh military provocation, the South Korean participant said.
The three countries' chief negotiators on the North Korean nuclear issue held a meeting earlier in the day to coordinate their responses to advancing nuclear and missile threats by North Korea.
The trilateral meeting comes amid unusually heightened tension after North Korea ratcheted up its ballistic missile tests and military threats to the US and South Korea this year. "(The three sides) agreed that we will strongly warn that North Korea should stop further strategic provocations, but we will take strong punitive action that the North could not bear if it pushes ahead with one despite the warning," Kim told reporters after the meeting, according to South Korean News Agency (Yonhap). 
"We had a discussion on the details (of what punitive action) but it is inappropriate to talk about the details," Kim said, only adding that the countries will consider stronger anti-North responses in the existing fields of UN Security Council resolution, country-level sanctions and international diplomatic pressure.
The diplomats denounced North Korea for posing a threat to the peace and stability of the international community, Kim said. "Since the North remains unchanged on its stance toward denuclearization, the efforts should be focused on keeping up and even further intensifying pressure on the North".
Also agreed in the trilateral meeting were trilateral efforts to secure China's "constructive role" in getting North Korea to give up its nuclear and missile programs, Kim also said.

Source: QNA