The United States, Japan and South Korea strongly condemned North Korea's recent ballistic missile launch, and Washington imposed new sanctions on a new Korean company, a day after Russia and China vetoed new sanctions against it.
A joint statement by the foreign ministers of the three countries affirmed their commitment to strengthening trilateral cooperation for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
The statement said that North Korea has significantly increased the frequency and range of ballistic missile launches since last September, in violation of Security Council resolutions.
The statement indicated that the three countries conducted coordinated maneuvers, as evidence of their joint commitment to regional security and stability in response to what the statement described as North Korea's destabilizing actions.
The statement reiterated the United States' commitment to defend South Korea and Japan, including through expanded deterrence, as described in the statement.
On Friday, the United States imposed sanctions on two Russian banks, a North Korean company and an individual it accused of supporting North Korea's weapons of mass destruction program.
The US Treasury said in a statement that it targeted Air Koryo Trading Corp., Far East Banks and Sputnik because of their contributions to collections and revenue-raising for North Korean organizations.
Washington also targeted Chung Yong Nam, a Belarus-based representative of an organization affiliated with the North Korean Academy of Natural Sciences, who Washington said provides support to North Korean organizations linked to ballistic missile development.
The latest US move comes a day after China and Russia vetoed a US-led effort to impose more international sanctions on North Korea over its ballistic missile launches, while publicly splitting the Security Council for the first time since it began punishing Pyongyang in 2006.
The two countries vetoed what the United States describes as the sixth test of an intercontinental ballistic missile by North Korea this year.
China is urging the United States to take measures including lifting some unilateral sanctions to entice Pyongyang to restart talks stalled since 2019, after three failed summits between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and former US President Donald Trump, and the United States said Pyongyang should not be rewarded.