The United States has been implementing a trilateral military intelligence sharing agreement with South Korea and Japan, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
The memorandum of understanding, which was signed in December last year, calls for voluntary sharing of military secrets on North Korea's nuclear and missile programs.
The agreement was put into action earlier this year, but questions have arisen after Assistant Secretary of Defense David Shear said earlier this month that the U.S. hopes to "operationalize" the agreement.
"We are implementing the arrangement," Cmdr. Bill Urban, a U.S. Defense Department spokesman, said in response to a question from Yonhap News Agency. The official declined to provide further details, including how many times information sharing has taken place.
Shear's remarks appear to mean that the current level of information sharing is not enough and the U.S. hopes to put the agreement to more active use.
The deal paved the way for Seoul and Tokyo to share such intelligence via the U.S. after the two countries failed to strike a bilateral intelligence sharing deal in 2012 due in part to negative public sentiment in South Korea about signing such a pact with the former colonial master.
The U.S. sees the agreement as a first step toward building greater security cooperation with the two allies as a counterbalance to a rising China.

Source: YONHAP.