WASHINGTON ― Senior South Korean and U.S. military officials began a meeting here Thursday to coordinate their response to recent North Korean provocations and to discuss alliance issues.

The Pentagon said it opened the inaugural session of the Korea-U.S. Integrated Defense Dialogue, which the defense chiefs of the two countries agreed to at a Security Consultative Meeting last year.

“Discussions will include North Korean provocations and coordinated responses as well as a broader range of Alliance-specific considerations, including how to strengthen and enhance the alliance,” Cmdr. Leslie Hull-Ryde, a spokeswoman from the U.S. Defense Department, told the Yonhap news agency.

The KIDD, she added, is an overarching structure which includes a series of alliance-related meetings such as the Extended Deterrence Policy Committee, the Strategic Alliance 2015 Working Group, and the Security Policy Initiative.

“Discussions will include issues of mutual concern related to these initiatives,” she said.

In the first-day session, South Korea was represented by Deputy Minister of Defense Lim Kwan-bin and the U.S. delegation was led by Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Northeast Asia David Helvey.

Lim is scheduled to meet Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Policy James Miller in the second and final day of the meeting.

The high-level consultations between Seoul and Washington come as reports circulate that Pyongyang may soon conduct another nuclear test or launch an attack on the South.

The North test-launched a long-range rocket earlier this month, which was unsuccessful. 

(Yonhap News)