This photo, provided by South Korea’s foreign ministry, shows (from R to L) Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya posing for a photo at the start of their meeting on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations foreign ministers’ meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on July 11, 2025. (Yonhap)
SEOUL/WASHINGTON, July 16 (Korea Bizwire) — Vice foreign ministers of South Korea, the United States and Japan will hold trilateral talks this week to discuss ways of further enhancing cooperation on North Korean issues and economic security, Seoul’s foreign ministry said Wednesday.
First Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Takehiro Funakoshi are scheduled to meet in Japan on Friday, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The upcoming talks come about nine months after their last meeting held in Seoul in October. It also marks the first since the inauguration of President Lee Jae Myung and U.S. President Donald Trump’s new administration.
“The three sides plan to hold broad and in-depth discussions on a wide range of topics, including the situation on the Korean Peninsula, regional dynamics, economic security, technology, energy and ways to enhance trilateral cooperation,” the ministry said in a press release.
Park plans to hold one-on-one talks with his U.S. and Japanese counterparts on the sidelines of the trilateral meeting, it said.
In a media note, the State Department also said Landau will attend the trilateral meeting in Tokyo and have separate bilateral talks with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts, as he will travel to Japan as part of a presidential delegation to attend the U.S. national day at the World Expo later this week.
It underscored that the deputy secretary’s first trip to Asia focuses on “upholding the United States’ commitment to advancing a free, open, and secure Indo-Pacific region as well as strengthening the trilateral partnership” between Korea, the U.S. and Japan.
During the October meeting, the three nations condemned North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats and agreed to strengthen their security cooperation.
(Yonhap)
