The foreign ministers of South Korea, the United States, and Japan are set to meet in Turkey to discuss issues on the Korean Peninsula, regional affairs, and ways to strengthen trilateral security and economic cooperation, including potential collaboration in the nuclear energy sector.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Turkey, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi are scheduled to hold a trilateral meeting around midnight today (July 7, Korea Standard Time).
Lee Moon-bae, deputy spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, explained during a regular briefing today, "At this first trilateral foreign ministers' meeting of the year, the three ministers will discuss issues concerning the Korean Peninsula, regional and global affairs, and trilateral security and economic cooperation."
"The trilateral cooperation projects span a wide range of fields," the deputy spokesperson added, noting that they "encompass supply chains, security, and economic-related matters."
It is reported that trilateral cooperation in nuclear energy may also be on the agenda.
Given that the three foreign ministers previously agreed at a meeting during the UN General Assembly last September to continue expanding practical cooperation in areas such as quantum technology, nuclear energy, artificial intelligence, and supply chains, it is expected that they will further specify plans for civil nuclear cooperation as an extension of those efforts.
Beyond this, discussions on various other economic and security issues are expected to continue.
On June 12, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a board of directors meeting for the South Korea-U.S.-Japan Secretariat in Tokyo with the U.S. Department of State and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to review the implementation status of ongoing cooperative projects in fields such as security, economy, and advanced technology.
That meeting was attended by Lee Won-woo, Director-General of the North American Affairs Bureau at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; David Wilezol, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Korea and Japan at the U.S. Department of State; and Kengo Otsuka, Deputy Director-General of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau at the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who discussed concrete measures to produce tangible results that citizens of the three countries can experience.
On the same day, a separate trilateral consultation on North Korea was held, attended by Kim Sang-il, Director of the North Korean Nuclear Policy Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, along with Wilezol and Otsuka. They shared assessments of the recent situation on the Korean Peninsula and in the region, and reaffirmed their commitment to the goal of complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions.
Therefore, attention is focused on whether this trilateral foreign ministers' meeting, held about a month after the working-level talks in June, will yield tangible results in the economic and security sectors that the people of the three nations can feel.
This marks the first trilateral foreign ministers' meeting since the gathering on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Gyeongju last October.
As Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is not attending this NATO summit, making a trilateral summit difficult, this meeting is expected to serve as an opportunity for the three foreign ministers to reaffirm the momentum of trilateral cooperation.
The three foreign ministers are expected to exchange views on practical cooperation measures, such as supply chains for advanced industries like artificial intelligence and semiconductors, economic security, and nuclear energy, as well as on the situation in the Middle East and issues in the Indo-Pacific region.
(Photo: Provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Yonhap News)