Japan, the United States and South Korea agreed on Thursday to work together to put more pressure on North Korea to get it to abandon its nuclear and missile programs, Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama said.



"We reaffirmed the necessity to increase pressure against North Korea to have it give up its nuclear and missile development and realize the denuclearization of the peninsula," Sugiyama told reporters.



He was speaking after a meeting in Tokyo with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken and South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lim Sung-nam.