SEOUL\u2014Amid growing concerns over the U.S. commitment to East Asia, Japan and South Korea agreed to steadily strengthen strategic coordination, including bilateral and trilateral security cooperation with the United States.<\/p>\n
The agreement came during the first vice\u2011ministerial \u201ctwo-plus-two\u201d meeting between foreign and defense authorities on May 7.<\/p>\n
In January, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and South Korean President Lee Jae\u2011myung affirmed the importance of \u201cstrategic coordination, including security cooperation between Japan and South Korea and among Japan, the United States and South Korea.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Japan and South Korea began a security dialogue in 1998 where senior foreign and defense officials discuss policies, it has been repeatedly suspended and resumed in response to fluctuations in bilateral relations.<\/p>\n
The forum has been upgraded from the director-general level to the vice\u2011ministerial level following the leaders\u2019 confirmation of the importance of strategic coordination.<\/p>\n
The Japanese delegation was led by Vice Foreign Minister Takehiro Funakoshi and Koji Kano, vice minister of defense for international affairs.<\/p>\n
South Korea was represented by First Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon\u2011joo and Lee Doo\u2011hee, vice minister of national defense.<\/p>\n
The participants exchanged views on responses to North Korea as well as on developments in the Middle East, Japanese officials said.<\/p>\n
They confirmed that Japan, South Korea and the United States will maintain close communication to bolster concrete security cooperation, including three-way exercises.<\/p>\n
According to the South Korean side, the two countries shared recognition that their cooperation, including with the United States, is becoming ever more important amid a worsening international situation.<\/p>\n
They also welcomed the revitalization of their leaders\u2019 mutual visits and agreed that the foreign and defense authorities should continue exchanges and cooperation in the same vein.<\/p>\n
Following U.S. strikes against Iran, part of the U.S. military forces in the Indo-Pacific region has been redeployed to the Middle East, leading to concerns about a potential \u201cpower vacuum\u201d in East Asia.<\/p>\n
As both Japan and South Korea are U.S. allies, their strategic interests align in seeking to advance cooperation to keep the United States engaged in the region.<\/p>\n
That said, there remain differences in stance between the two countries over defense cooperation.<\/p>\n
A pending issue for years is that they have yet to conclude an Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement\u00a0that would allow for the smooth provision of fuel and other supplies between their troops.<\/p>\n
While Japan hopes to build momentum toward concluding the agreement, South Korea is believed to be remaining cautious on the matter.<\/p>\n
(This article was written by Mizuki Sato and Akihiko Kaise.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEOUL\u2014Amid growing concerns over the U.S. commitment to East Asia, Japan and South Korea agreed to steadily strengthen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[172,8,173,180],"class_list":{"0":"post-19041","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-japan","8":"tag-asahi-shimbun","9":"tag-japan","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}