SEOUL, Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- Political controversy and public opposition are expected to mount in South Korea over the signing of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) to share military intelligence with the United States and Japan.

Seoul's defense ministry said Friday that vice defense ministers of the three nations will ink the MoU in their each country on Dec. 29 without a formal ceremony, a move considered to be out of worries about public uproar here in South Korea.

Under the pact, South Korea and Japan will not exchange military intelligence directly, but share intelligence via the United States after consent from both South Korea and Japan.

The pact will be restricted to intelligence on nuclear and missile programs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea ( DPRK), but public anger and political opposition are expected to rise as the Japanese cabinet has yet to repent and acknowledge its past atrocities during its colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

Seoul and Tokyo pushed for a bilateral pact to share a broad range of military intelligence on the DPRK in June 2012, but South Korea put the deal on hold at the last minute amid public uproar at home. The then South Korean government pushed the pact through without enough public debate for fear of possible opposition from the public.

Kim Seong-soo, spokesman of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy, told a press briefing that the trilateral pact would be a new version of the aborted pact with Japan, which was pushed ahead behind the scenes under the Lee Myung-bak administration.

Sharing intelligence with Japan, which showed no repentance over its history distortions, will face opposition from the public though the government may avert the requirement for parliamentary ratification by adopting the MoU procedure, Kim said.

Amid frayed ties between Seoul and Tokyo for historical and territorial disputes, South Korea set its basic policy at turning to the trilateral intelligence-sharing. Military intelligence pacts were reached in 1987 between Washington and Seoul and in 2007 between Washington and Tokyo, but not between Seoul and Tokyo.

Kim Jong-min, spokesman of the minority opposition Justice Party, said the pact would not be acceptable.

More than 40 South Korean civic groups held a joint press conference in front of the defense ministry's office on Dec. 22, denouncing Seoul's push for the intelligence-sharing with Tokyo.

The civic organizations expressed worry that the pact would deepen regional tensions as it may lead South Korea to be incorporated into the U.S.-led missile defense (MD) system. The South Korean defense ministry has claimed that it will develop its own MD system, called Korea Air and Missile Defense (KAMD).

South Korea claimed that its military could gain intelligence from Japan's six military satellites about the DPRK's nuclear and missile programs, but the country can get such intelligence without the pact as the United States is far more overwhelming in terms of intelligence, the groups said.

The civic groups also cautioned that the intelligence-sharing may help Japan speed up its rearmament movement, which the cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to blatantly push after winning the recent elections.

The intelligence-sharing is expected to restore security cooperation between the three countries, which came to a halt on sour ties between Seoul and Tokyo. The United States has wanted to restore it for its presence in Northeast Asia.