South Korea and the United States said on Tuesday they will explore various measures to curb North Korean provocations, reaffirming that Pyongyang's latest nuclear test poses a grave threat to their alliance, reported Yonhap news agency.

After the two-day Korea-U.S. Integrated Defense Dialogue (KIDD), a biannual high-level security meeting, in Seoul, the Ministry of National Defense and the US Department of Defense issued a joint statement that called for the North to renounce its nuclear program in a "complete, verifiable and irreversible" manner.

"Any attacks on the US or our allies will be defeated, and any use of nuclear weapons will be met with a response that would be effective and overwhelming," the allies said in the joint statement, according to the news agency.

Source: MENA