Politics

Seoul, Tokyo confirm trilateral meeting with Biden at ASEAN, G20 summits

Tokyo, Nov 10 (EFE).- South Korea and Japan confirmed on Thursday that a trilateral meeting between the leaders of both countries, Yoon Suk-yeol and Fumio Kishida, and US President Joe Biden is scheduled to take place at the ASEAN and G20 Summits in the coming week.

“A South Korea-US-Japan summit has been fixed, and several other bilateral meetings are either fixed or under discussion,” Yoon told reporters on Thursday in reference to the meetings on the sidelines of the upcoming summits.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit will take place between Nov. 12 and 13 in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Phen, while the Group of Twenty (G20) summit will happen between Nov. 15 and 16 in the Indonesian island of Bali.

Japan’s government spokesperson Hirokazu Matsuno also confirmed the trilateral meeting on Thursday, although like Yoon, he did not reveal the location nor the exact date of the meeting where rising tensions in the Korean peninsula are expected to be discussed, among other issues.

Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will participate in the ASEAN and G20 summits, as well as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, scheduled for Nov. 18 and 19 in Bangkok.

At the ASEAN summit, Japan aims to strengthen cooperation between countries on global issues, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and North Korea’s ballistic missile launches, Matsuno said in a press conference.

He added that in the G2O summit, Japan will present its stance on energy and food security that have been affected by the situation in Ukraine, while in the APEC meeting, he will seek to promote the recovery of the Asia-Pacific region after the Covid-19 pandemic as well as fair trade and a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Kishida is also scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with leaders of the US, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Brunei, according to the spokesperson, who did not refer to a possible meeting between Kishida and China’s President Xi Jinping.

Local media reports indicate that Tokyo has reached out to Beijing to organize a bilateral meeting between both leaders at the Bali summit.

If the meeting were to happen, it would be the first between the leaders of the two nations since before the pandemic. EFE

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