SEOUL, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- South Korea on Wednesday kicked off a three-day regional security forum after the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s latest nuclear test.

According to Seoul's defense ministry, the Seoul Defense Dialogue (SDD) brought together about 500 participants, including military officials and security experts, from 38 countries and regions as well as four international organizations.

The South Korea-hosted SDD is a vice ministerial-level regional security forum, launched in 2012 to discuss ways of building military trust in the Asia-Pacific region.

This year's forum, the sixth of this kind, came three days after the DPRK detonated what it claimed was a hydrogen bomb.

The plenary session was scheduled for Thursday.