Yoon seeks greater trilateral cooperation to deter North

Regarding extended deterrence, President Yoon Suk Yeol told Bloomberg News he is “open to separate consultations” among South Korea, the United States and Japan.

Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin, bottom, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, top left and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, top right, take part in a videoconference meeting Tuesday to discuss their leaders’ trilateral summit at Camp David this week. [FOREIGN MINISTRY]

President Yoon Suk Yeol is leaving the door open for greater cooperation with the United States and Japan on deterrence ahead of his trilateral summit with the leaders of the two countries later this week.

In a written interview with Bloomberg News published Wednesday regarding extended deterrence, Yoon said he is "open to separate consultations" among South Korea, the United States and Japan.

He also underscored that the international community "will never accept North Korea as a nuclear power under any circumstances," stressing the "complete denuclearization" of Pyongyang is a "clear and consistent goal" for Seoul and Washington.

Yoon said he expects his upcoming trilateral summit with U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at Camp David in Maryland Friday will lead to agreement on ways to enhance their capabilities to respond to the nuclear and missile threats from North Korea.

Last month, South Korea and the United States convened their inaugural Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) meeting in Seoul to enhance U.S. commitment to provide extended deterrence using the full range of its capabilities, including nuclear weapons. This was a follow-up to the Washington Declaration signed by Yoon and Biden in their bilateral summit in April.

The upcoming gathering at the American presidential retreat upon the invitation of Biden will mark the first-ever standalone trilateral summit of these countries. Yoon and Kishida will be the first foreign leaders to visit Camp David since 2015, after Biden extended them an invitation to visit him this summer on the sidelines of the Group of 7 gathering in Hiroshima in May.

When asked about the best ways for Seoul, Tokyo and Washington to de-risk global supply chains from China for items such as semiconductors and batteries, Yoon told Bloomberg that Seoul plans to discuss "concrete" ways to strengthen cooperation in areas including sharing information supply chains and establishing an Early Warning System, or EWS.

Addressing the Biden administration's initiatives to curb exports of crucial materials to China, Yoon said that South Korea is "actively participating in global discussions on export controls to maintain world peace and security" and will continue to consult closely with major countries on this matter.

"We are not asking countries to choose between the United States and China," Vedant Patel, the U.S. State Department spokesman, said in a briefing in Washington on Tuesday, when asked to clarify if the trilateral security summit will discuss threats from Beijing.

"What this is about is offering countries a choice of what partnership with the United States could look like, what a shared vision for a free and open world and a free and open Indo-Pacific can look like," Patel said.

Washington, he said, does "not seek conflict or confrontation or a new Cold War," noting the Biden administration continues to try to manage the competition with Beijing "with responsibly."

But he added that the United States has been clear about "continued concern" regarding China and Russia's growing relationship, including their recent large-scale naval exercise.

Addressing China's criticism of the upcoming Camp David summit as an attempt to create a mini-NATO, Patel said that the trilateral meeting is about getting countries together that share a vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific, "an area that is interconnected where people and goods can flow appropriately, where countries are free from coercion and able to choose their own path."

He added the United States will "invest in our alliances and partnerships with countries in the region like Korea and Japan."

Referring to the impact of the upcoming trilateral summit on relations with Beijing, he said, "I don't think these things are zero-sum. We can continue to pursue all of these things appropriately."

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a media briefing on the upcoming trilateral summit with the leaders of South Korea and Japan at Camp David at the State Department in Washington Tuesday. [AP/YONHAP]

On Tuesday, Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi took part in a videoconference meeting to fine-tune details for the upcoming summit.

"This summit comes at a moment when our region and the world are being tested by geopolitical competition, by climate crisis, by Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, by nuclear provocations," Blinken told a press briefing in Washington Tuesday.

"Our heightened engagement is part of our broader efforts to revitalize, to strengthen, to knit together our alliances and partnerships, and, in this case, to help realize a shared vision of an Indo-Pacific that is free and open, prosperous, secure, resilient and connected."

Blinken said that the three countries will likely hold regular meetings down the road at various levels, including at senior governmental levels.

The trilateral summit will cover a wide range of issues, he said, including security and economic security questions, coordination on development aid, humanitarian assistance, shaping the use of emerging technologies and greater people-to-people exchanges, he said.

He described Seoul and Tokyo as "core allies, not just in the region but around the world."

BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]