BALI: The senior diplomats from South Korea, the US, and Japan met in Indonesia and decided to step up cooperation in the face of North Korea's threats and work to restart negotiations with Pyongyang, Seoul's foreign ministry said.
On the resort island of Bali, alongside the Group of 20 summit that took place from Thursday to Friday, South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin met for the first time with his American and Japanese colleagues, Antony Blinken and Yoshimasa Hayashi.
According to a statement from the ministry, "the three ministers agreed the perspective that North Korea's nuclear and missile threat is a serious issue that has to be dealt with as a priority by South Korea, the US, and Japan." "They decided to work closely together based on a flexible, open diplomatic strategy to bring (Pyongyang) back to dialogue and to undertake efforts to deliver a united, forceful response from the international community against North Korea's provocation," it continued.
The U.S. Department of State later reported that Blinken and his counterparts from South Korea and Japan talked about measures to increase security cooperation between their three nations.
It said in a press release, referring to North Korea by its official name, that "the secretary and foreign ministers condemned the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's unlawful ballistic missile launches and discussed how to expand trilateral security cooperation."
The secretary reaffirmed American commitment to swiftly resolving the kidnappings issue and also total denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
According to the South Korean foreign ministry, the trio emphasised the significance of trilateral cooperation to meet new regional and global issues and pursue "future-oriented cooperation" to advance peace, security, and prosperity in the area.
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