US, Japan and South Korea leaders hold brief meeting at APEC By Reuters
© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Acting protocol chief Ethan Rosenzweig shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at a welcome reception for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders in San Francisco, California, United States, on November 15, 2023. REUTERS/L
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SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol met with U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in San Francisco on Thursday, according to Yoon’s office.
The leaders posed for a photo together before leaving without remarking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, Yonhap news agency reported. The brief meeting comes three months after leaders met at Camp David in August for talks.
Yoon and Kishida promised to promote deeper cooperation in a separate meeting earlier Friday, Yoon’s office said.
“This year, bilateral cooperation deepens with the reactivation of exchanges at every level, including the summit level, and the reestablishment of consultation bodies between our governments,” Yoon said in a media report.
Kishida said he hoped to advance cooperation in politics, security guarantees, economy and culture.
The two also discussed North Korea’s continued nuclear and missile tests and pledged to work with the United States to respond to North Korea, Japan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. .
The two men met Thursday, a day before they participated in a roundtable on technology cooperation at Stanford University.
They are expected to announce a joint supply network for carbon-neutral fuels such as hydrogen and ammonia, the business daily reports.
Yoon has made it a priority to repair ties with Japan since taking office in May 2022 and to restore trilateral security cooperation with the United States as North Korea ramps up its weapons programs and openly threatens the South.
These measures have not always been popular at home, where many South Koreans believe Japan did not do enough to atone for its occupation of the Korean peninsula between 1910 and 1945.
Kishida also attended the summit with Biden in August, pledging alongside the other two countries to deepen military and economic cooperation and reestablish an alliance aimed at countering threats from North Korea and China’s growing influence .
