South Korea, the United States and Japan will sign a pact next week on sharing their military intelligence about North Korea's nuclear and missile programs in the face of Pyongyang's evolving security threats, officials here said Friday.

   The three counties have been discussing the signing of a memorandum of understanding on sharing military secrets since May when they agreed on the need for such an agreement during their defense ministers' talks in Singapore. The conclusion comes two years after the bilateral info-sharing pact between Seoul and Tokyo was ruptured due to fierce public criticism.

   "Vice defense ministers of the three nations will sign the trilateral pact on Monday to share their intelligence on North Korea's nuclear and missile threats," an official from Seoul's defense ministry said, requesting anonymity.

   No separate ceremony will take place, with the vice ministers of each country to sign the pact, he said, adding no additional domestic process for approval is necessary as the subjects of concluding the envisioned pact will not be the three nations but their defense ministries.

   The expected deal comes as North Korea's missile and nuclear programs are raising concerns not only in South Korea but in the greater region and beyond.

   Pyongyang has recently threatened to carry out another nuclear test in protest of a United Nations resolution against its human rights abuses. Recent reports have also indicated the country has advanced its technology to miniaturize nuclear warheads that could be mounted on its long-range ballistic missiles.

   The bellicose regime has conducted three underground nuclear detonations since 2006, including its most powerful one with a uranium-based device in February 2013. This year, it also fired off a total of 111 rockets including mid-range Rodong missiles.

   "We believe that the agreement will be very effective in deterring the communist country from launching provocations in the first place," another defense ministry official said.

   "The cooperation between the three nations is expected to boost the quality of the intelligence on North Korea, which will enable the allies to respond to possible provocations in a swifter fashion," he noted.

   The scope of military information to be shared among the three will be confined to intelligence on threats from North Korea, according to the officials, in an apparent move to circumvent expected opposition from the public, which has opposed signing such a pact with former colonial ruler Japan.

   The Korean Peninsula was ruled by Japan from 1910-45, and resentment over its atrocities, such as the sexual enslavement of Korean women for its troops, still runs deep among many South Koreans, with many of the historic issues going unresolved.

   Seoul and Washington have a bilateral military intelligence sharing agreement, as do the U.S. and Japan. Seoul and Tokyo had worked to sign such a deal in 2012, but the deal fell apart at the last minute due in part to negative public sentiment in South Korea.

   "The agreement does not mean sharing military secrets in a broad fashion," said the defense ministry official. "Rather than directly sharing the sensitive information with Japan, we will give our intelligence first to the U.S. and the tips will then be shared with Japan upon our approval, and vice versa," he noted.

   In response to the criticism that the agreement will pave the way for South Korea to join the U.S.-led missile defense system participated in by Japan, Seoul officials stressed the government's push for its own missile shield.

   Rebuffing the U.S.' call to join its MD, which is widely seen as intended to keep China in check, Seoul has been building the Korea Air and Missile Defense System. (Yonhap)