Foreign Minister Chung to meet Blinken and Hayashi in Hawaii

Home > National > Diplomacy

print dictionary print

Foreign Minister Chung to meet Blinken and Hayashi in Hawaii

The Korea-U.S.-Japan ministerial meeting in New York on Sept. 23, 2021. [YONHAP]

The Korea-U.S.-Japan ministerial meeting in New York on Sept. 23, 2021. [YONHAP]

Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong will meet his American and Japanese counterparts in Hawaii on Saturday to address North Korea's latest provocations, the Foreign Ministry said.  
 
Chung is scheduled to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi on Saturday afternoon in Honolulu, where the three will discuss Korean Peninsula issues and other subjects of common interest, the ministry said in a statement Friday.
 
North Korea test-fired a Hwasong-12, an intermediate range ballistic missile, on Jan. 30. It was the 11th missile launched in seven weapons tests in January. The provocations raised alarm that the North is rapidly verifying the capabilities of its arsenal to evade interception by South Korean and U.S. defense systems.  
 
Daniel Kritenbrink, U.S. assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs, emphasized the importance of a trilateral approach to the issue.  
 
"Certainly, the North Korea issue and countering the threat posed by North Korea's nuclear and missile programs remains a top priority for the United States, and I am confident the same can be said for our Japanese and South Korean partners," he said during a teleconference with the press on Friday. "I would just underscore on the subject of the DPRK that our goal remains the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and we will continue to consult closely, obviously, with our partners in Tokyo and Seoul and other partners around the region and the globe as well."
 
DPRK is the acronym for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
 
Kritenbrink added the meeting will highlight the "absolutely ironclad" American security guarantees for Japan and Korea.  
 
The meeting in Hawaii follows a similar meeting in New York in September.
 
If Chung speaks with Hayashi separately in Hawaii, it would be the first meeting between the foreign ministers of Japan and Korea since Hayashi was sworn in last November. The two spoke by phone for the first time on Friday.  
 
Relations between the two countries have been at historic lows recently as a result of a number of disputes, including those related to the compensation for Korean victims of forced labor and Japanese wartime sexual slavery. More recently, Korea strongly protested Japan's recommendation of the Sado mine, where Koreans were forced to work during World War II, as a Unesco World Heritage site.
 
Chung will meet with Blinken separately during his visit to Hawaii, and also with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Commander Admiral John Aquilino, according to State Department.  
 
 
 

BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]
Log in to Twitter or Facebook account to connect
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
help-image Social comment?
s
lock icon

To write comments, please log in to one of the accounts.

Standards Board Policy (0/250자)