Moon to meet top military commanders over lunch

President Moon Jae-in was set to hold a meeting with the country's top military commanding officers Friday.

The meeting will be held over lunch at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, involving some 190 commanders from the three armed services.

It will mark Moon's second meeting with top military commanders since taking office in May, and the first of its kind following a personnel reshuffle that replaced the chiefs of staff of all three armed services and other military commanders.

The president was widely expected to call for stepped up efforts to build up the country's own defense capabilities as a way of deterring additional provocations from North Korea, Cheong Wa Dae officials noted.

South Korean president Moon Jae-in (C) speaks to military commanders at the defense ministry in Seoul, South Korea(EPA-Yonhap)

Pyongyang has staged 11 missile launches since the Moon administration came into office with the latest missile test just about two weeks earlier. The communist regime has also conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test so far on Sept. 3.

In a bilateral summit held last month in Seoul, Moon and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump agreed to speed up Seoul's acquisition or development of new and advanced strategic military assets as a way of building its own measures to counter North Korean provocations.

Such assets may include nuclear-powered submarines, which are considered an answer to North Korea's submarine-launched ballistic missiles. (Yonhap)