North Korea launched multiple short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea on Tuesday, South Korea's military said, in a provocation staged just days before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday stated that the Ukrainian security forces have captured two North Korean military personnel in the Kursk region amid the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
North Korea on Saturday lambasted a recent trilateral meeting between South Korea, the US and Japan that discussed peace in the Indo-Pacific region, deriding the talks as an "insult" to peace.
A Ukrainian media outlet has reported that about 500 North Korean soldiers were killed in a missile strike by Kyiv in Russia's western Kursk region.
The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said on Sunday that South Korea will have to pay a "dear price" for sending propaganda leaflets across the border the previous day.
The meeting in Stockholm will be the first formal working-level talks since the leaders of the two nations met in June, vowing to renew negotiations that had stalled after the failed attempt in February 2019.
Korean delegation chief Kim Myong-gil is optimistic about the upcoming session in Sweden.
The move marks a significant escalation from the short-range tests Pyongyang conducted since May.
During a press briefing, Taro Kono, Minister of Defence said "The reality is that China is rapidly increasing military spending, and so people can grasp that we need more pages.
Abe said that he wants his country to normalize relations with North Korea by resolving their outstanding issues, including the abduction of Japanese nationals by Pyongyang in the 1970s and 1980s.
