The U.S. and South Korea reaffirmed their shared goal of North Korean denuclearization at a Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) meeting in Seoul on Thursday, restoring language and references to Pyongyang that were absent from the previous meeting’s joint statement.

“The ROK and the U.S. confirmed their shared goal of the denuclearization of North Korea,” a joint statement read after the NCG’s sixth meeting. 

The statement added that Washington reaffirmed its commitment to provide extended deterrence to South Korea using “the full range of U.S. capabilities, including nuclear.”

The meeting was co-chaired by ROK Deputy Minister for National Defense Policy Kim