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| U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper holds hand with his counterparts Defense Minister Jeong Keyong-doo, on his left, and Japan's Defense Minister Taro Kono prior to a trilateral meeting Sunday, on the sidelines of the 6th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Defense Ministers' Meeting-Plus, held at the Avani Plus Riverside Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. Yonhap |
Seoul, Washington agree to postpone joint air exercises
By Jung Da-min
BANGKOK ― South Korea, the United States and Japan held a trilateral meeting at the Avani Plus Riverside Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand, Sunday, on the sidelines of the 6th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Defense Ministers' Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus). The defense ministers from the three countries discussed the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), a bilateral military intelligence sharing pact between Seoul and Tokyo that is about to expire, and the North Korea nuclear issue.
"We stand firm in upholding well-established international rules and norms. Our continued trilateral partners remain key to addressing these security challenges, and preserving our freedom and prosperity," U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said in his opening remarks at the meeting at the ADMM-Plus. The challenges mentioned were "challenges that a growing and a more assertive China poses to the stability of the region," he said.
Esper also talked about the importance of information sharing between the allies while calling for South Korea and Japan to look beyond and overcome bilateral issues that "harm our efforts and play into the hands of Pyongyang and Beijing."
Prior to the three-way meeting, Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo met bilaterally with Esper and the two announced that Seoul and Washington were postponing a joint air force exercise ― one that North Korea habitually criticizes ― to keep the U.S. denuclearization talks with the North alive.
"After close consultation and careful consideration, Minister Jeong and I've jointly decided to postpone this month's combined flying training event (CFTE). We have made this decision, as an act of good will to contribute to an environment conducive to diplomacy and the advancement of peace," Esper said. "We encourage the DPRK to demonstrate the same good will as the considerate decision on the conduct of training, exercise and testing. We also urge the DPRK to return to the negotiating table without preconditions or hesitation."
Jeong and Esper dismissed concerns about any possible negative effect on combined military readiness, saying their willingness to modify training to keep the door open to an agreement on the nuclear disarmament of North Korea should not be mistaken for a lack of commitment to advance and defend their shared goals.
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| U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo attend a press conference in Bangkok, Thailand, Sunday, where they announced that the two allies were postponing a joint military air force exercise that North Korea has habitually criticized as provocative. AP-Yonhap |
The decision came about a month ahead of a year's end deadline set by North Korea on the denuclearization negotiations, and after working-level talks in early October ended unsuccessfully.
Earlier this month, Seoul and Washington had planned to replace the massive Vigilant Ace winter joint air force exercise with a scaled down drill as happened last year and to conduct it later. However, a critical North said changing the name of the exercise was not as same as abolishing it.
The U.S. also called for its allies and partner countries' commitment in enforcing United Nations sanctions against Pyongyang over its nuclear and weapons development.
"We have yet to see concrete progress in the disposal of North Korea's nuclear weapons and missiles. In these circumstances, as the defense authorities of Japan, the U.S. and the ROK, what we need to do is to continue to promote trilateral defense cooperation, and to make every effort in order to maintain peace and stability in the region," Kono said ahead of the three-way meeting.
"I expect to have informative discussions today not only to make step forwards in trilateral cooperation for the implementation of U.N. Security Council resolutions in a complete manner, but also in order to maintain readiness for any future actions taken by North Korea."
The ADMM-Plus is a platform for ASEAN and its eight dialogue partners to promote more practical defense cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region.
The U.S. has been beefing up its Indo-Pacific policy, with the U.S. Department of State releasing a report titled "A Free and Open Indo-Pacific: Advancing a Shared Vision" earlier this month.
U.S. officials were on a trip to Asian countries including South Korea and Japan where they asked their allies to play a bigger role in enhancing regional security and pay more in defense cost-sharing with the U.S.
"Through today's trilateral meeting, I hope to have honest talks with the two defense chiefs over our joint efforts to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia," Jeong said, ahead of the three-way meeting. "I hope our current relationships can be improved based on shared values and security interests among South Korea, the U.S. and Japan."
Regarding the GSOMIA that is due to end Nov. 22, no compromise deal emerged with South Korea and Japan failing to narrow their differences.
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| Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo, right, and his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono hold a bilateral meeting Sunday, on the sidelines of the 6th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Defense Ministers' Meeting-Plus, held at the Avani Plus Riverside Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. Yonhap |
"The Japanese side wants to keep the GSOMIA but as I have been telling people in South Korea, the government was set to renew the pact up until June. However, it had to make the decision to terminate it after Japan imposed trade restrictions against South Korea and removed it from its whitelist of countries receiving preferential trade treatment," Jeong told South Korean reporters right after his meeting with Kono.
Kono told Japanese reporters in a separate briefing, that he asked South Korea to "make a wise decision."
The GSOMIA is not just about bilateral security cooperation between South Korea and Japan but also involves the U.S. which uses the trilateral security cooperation treaty in its regional deterrence policy against China, North Korea and Russia.
Tokyo's trade actions came about after South Korea's Supreme Court ruled last year that some Japanese companies must pay compensation to surviving South Koreans forced to work for them during the 1910-45 Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula. Seoul saw this as unfair retaliatory moves related to the court rulings, something Tokyo denied citing they were because of "security concerns."
The ending of the GSOMIA would be the latest in a series of conflicts between South Korea and Japan regarding "security cooperation," which have involved the ongoing territorial claims by Tokyo over South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo, and confrontations between South Korean warships and Japanese maritime patrol aircraft last December.
