South Korea and the United States on Tuesday launched a new consultative body on North Korea policy, amid persistent tensions between Seoul’s foreign and unification ministries over who should take the lead on inter-Korean affairs. The consultative group, led by Jeong Yeon-doo, vice minister for diplomatic strategy and intelligence at the foreign ministry, and acting U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Kevin Kim, held its first meeting at the ministry's headquarters in Seoul. Defense officials from both countries also attended. Known formally as Follow-up Discussions on the South Korea-U.S. Joint Fact Sheet, the body marks the first bilateral consultative mechanism on North Korea to be launched under the Lee Jae Myung government, which took office in June. The move comes as Seoul seeks to produce tangible results in its North Korea policy next year, as Pyongyang remains unresponsive to Seoul's repeated overtures. The launch of the new consultative group was met with pushback from the Ministry of Unification, which said a day earlier that it would opt out of the foreign ministry-led discussi