US President Joe Biden will host a trilateral summit with his South Korean counterpart Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Washington on August 18, the White House said.
“At the summit (in Camp David), the leaders will celebrate a new chapter in their trilateral relationship as they reaffirm their strong bonds of friendship and the ironclad alliances between the US and Japan, and the US and the Republic of Korea,” Yonhap News Agency quoted White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre as saying in a statement on Friday, referring to South Korea by its official name.
The leaders will mainly discuss threats posed by North Korea’s evolving nuclear and missile programs, according to Jean-Pierre.
“The three leaders will discuss expanding trilateral cooperation across the Indo-Pacific and beyond — including to address the continued threat posed by the DPRK and to strengthen ties with ASEAN and the Pacific Islands,” the White House spokesperson said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Also confirming the development, spokesperson of the South Korean presidential office Lee Do-woon said: “This summit will be an important opportunity to elevate the cooperation among the three countries that share core values to a new level. We expect the three nations to enhance the rules-based international order together and to make more active contributions to regional and global security and economic prosperity.”
As for the summit’s agenda, the spokesperson said the three leaders will hold in-depth discussions on policy coordination regarding the North Korean nuclear and missile threats, as well as cooperation on economic security and other major regional and global issues.
The proposed summit will be the first stand-alone trilateral summit to be held as the leaders of the US, South Korea and Japan have only held trilateral summits on the sidelines of other gatherings, such as regional meetings, in the past, according to Seoul officials.
John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, said the summit will also mark the first visit to Camp David by a foreign leader since 2015.
“At the summit, the leaders will celebrate a new chapter in their trilateral relationship, and they will reaffirm strong bonds of friendship,” Kirby said at a press briefing.
Yoon and first lady Kim Keon Hee arrived in Ukraine following a three-day official visit to Poland, reports Asian Lite News
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol made an unannounced visit to Ukraine on Saturday, sending a strong signal of support for the war-torn nation, his office said.
Yoon and first lady Kim Keon Hee arrived in Ukraine following a three-day official visit to Poland, according to senior presidential secretary for press affairs Kim Eun-hye.
He met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later in the day to discuss areas where South Korea can provide additional aid, reports Yonhap News Agency.
Earlier Saturday, Yoon visited the site of mass killings in Bucha, near Kyiv, before visiting Irpin, a civilian residential area that has been subject to large-scale missile attacks, the press secretary said.
He was also scheduled to lay a wreath at the Wall of Remembrance of the Fallen for Ukraine in Kyiv.
Further details are yet to be disclosed.
Yoon has shown strong support for Ukraine in line with his campaign for freedom, human rights and the rule of law in solidarity with like-minded nations.
Пан Президент Республіки Корея був сьогодні в Бучі та Ірпені і на власні очі бачив наслідки російської окупації. Але ж Буча та Ірпінь – лише два з тисяч українських міст, які зазнали ударів російського терору. Масштаб принесених Росією страждань і руйнувань – колосальний. Отже,… pic.twitter.com/eiJlkUlt0u
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 15, 2023
South Korea has provided humanitarian assistance to Ukraine in its protracted war with Russia but denied the country’s requests for lethal weapons.
This will be the second Yoon-Zelensky meeting after one held on the sidelines of a G7 Summit in Hiroshima, Japan, in May.
At the time, Yoon promised additional non-lethal aid, including demining equipment and ambulances.
Yoon’s visit to Ukraine came at the end of a two-leg trip that earlier took him to Lithuania for the NATO Summit and then to Poland for an official visit.
President Yoon Suk Yeol (L) and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (R) inspect an honor guard during an official arrival ceremony for the Japanese leader at the presidential office in Seoul on May 7, 2023.(Yonhap/IANS)
Japanese PM Kishida’s visit comes as bilateral relations have warmed significantly following Seoul’s decision in March to compensate Korean victims of Japanese wartime forced labour without contribution from Japanese firms.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Seoul on Sunday for the second summit in less than two months, a highly symbolic meeting demonstrating the neighbouring nations are firmly on course to the full restoration of long-frayed relations.
Yoon welcomed Kishida to the presidential office in Seoul in an official arrival ceremony that included the playing of the two countries’ national anthems and a joint honour guard review, Yonhap news agency reported.
The Japanese Prime Minister arrived in Seoul earlier on Sunday for a two-day working visit and stopped at Seoul National Cemetery to pay his respects to Korea’s fallen independence activists and war veterans before heading to the presidential office.
Kishida’s visit comes as bilateral relations have warmed significantly following Seoul’s decision in March to compensate Korean victims of Japanese wartime forced labour without contribution from Japanese firms.
Yoon travelled to Tokyo 10 days after the decision was announced and held a summit with Kishida as the first South Korean president to pay a bilateral visit to Japan in 12 years.
Kishida’s visit is also the first bilateral visit by a Japanese leader in 12 years, marking the full-scale resumption of “shuttle diplomacy,” or regular mutual visits, as agreed between Yoon and Kishida during their summit in Tokyo in March, Yonhap news agency reported.
Later in the day, Yoon and Kishida will hold a joint news conference, and then have dinner at the official presidential residence, where they will be joined by first lady Kim Keon Hee and Kishida’s wife, Yuko, according to diplomatic sources.
Fumio Kishida, Prime Minister of Japan.
The summit was first held in a small group and will later be held in an expanded format, covering issues such as security, high-tech industries, science and technology, and cooperation on youth and cultural affairs, according to the presidential office.
North Korea will feature high on the agenda as South Korea pushes to strengthen cooperation with Japan and trilaterally with the US to counter the growing threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes.
Yoon recently returned from a state visit to Washington, where he and US President Joe Biden agreed on a set of measures to support the US “extended deterrence” commitment to defending South Korea with all of its military capabilities, including nuclear weapons.
A joint summit statement noted the two presidents also “emphasised the importance of US-South Korea-Japan trilateral cooperation, guided by shared values, driven by innovation, and committed to shared prosperity and security”.
Trade and economic issues will likely be high on the agenda as well, given calls for South Korea and Japan to work more closely together to defend their interests in high-tech industries, such as semiconductors and batteries, as the US and the European Union move to protect their own industries.
South Koreans will be watching closely for any discussion of Japan’s plan to release contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant crippled by an earthquake and a tsunami in 2011.
South Korea hopes Japan will agree to a joint investigation of the contaminated water in addition to the monitoring currently under way by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The two countries are also in the process of restoring each other as trusted trading partners after having removed each other from their respective “white lists” of nations eligible for preferential export treatment amid the forced labour row in 2019.
President Yoon Suk Yeol speaks during a ceremony to mark the start of business for the new year at the former presidential office Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul. (Yonhap/IANS)
The presidential office said the summit is unlikely to produce a joint statement, though the final decision will be made during the talks and the leaders will announce the outcome of the summit at a joint press conference.
South Koreans will be paying keen attention to whether Kishida goes beyond reaffirming the positions of past Japanese governments to issue an apology or express remorse for Tokyo’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
During the March summit, Kishida reaffirmed the Japanese government inherits on the whole the historical perceptions of past governments, including the 1998 joint declaration adopted by former President Kim Dae-jung and former Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi.
The 1998 declaration called for overcoming the past and building new relations, with Obuchi expressing remorse for the “horrendous damage and pain” Japan’s colonial rule inflicted on the Korean people.
On Monday, Kishida is scheduled to hold meetings with members of a South Korea-Japan parliamentarians’ association and chiefs of South Korea’s six business lobbies, including SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, who is now heading the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, according to industry sources.
