By Michael Hernandez
WASHINGTON (AA) - US President Joe Biden met with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts Friday for what may be his last trilateral meeting with the key US allies before President-elect Donald Trump assumes office.
The roughly 40-minute gathering on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima, Peru, comes as North Korea and Russia significantly escalate their bilateral cooperation, including the deployment of thousands of North Korean troops to bolster the Kremlin's war effort in Ukraine.
Addressing reporters as he sat down with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Biden lauded what he called a "whole new era of cooperation among our three countries" ushered in by US leadership in bringing together the nations whose relations were largely defined by enmity for much of the post-World War II-era.
"It’s part of a much larger effort, these past four years, to bring together America’s Pacific allies," said Biden, noting the first leader-level trilateral meeting between the Pacific powers which he hosted at the presidential retreat at Camp David in August 2023.
"I’m proud of how far we’ve come since that historic meeting, promoting development in southeast Asia and the Pacific islands, linking arms to secure the technologies of the future and countering North Korea’s dangerous and destabilizing cooperation with Russia," he added.
As he prepares to leave office in two months, handing the reigns to Trump, Biden said he believes the partnership he has helped to establish is "built to last. That's my hope and expectation.”
A joint statement issued by the White House said the US, Japan and South Korea announced the creation of a "Trilateral Secretariat" between the nations that will be tasked with "coordinating and implementing our shared commitments."
"This new secretariat will seek to ensure that the work we do together further aligns our objectives and actions to make the Indo-Pacific a thriving, connected, resilient, stable, and secure region," it said.
"We applaud our expanding trilateral security cooperation, including the successful first two iterations of the trilateral multi-domain exercise Freedom Edge and the signing of the Memorandum of Cooperation on the Trilateral Security Cooperation Framework to institutionalize trilateral cooperation among our defense authorities," it added.
The statement made specific mention of North Korea's deployment of its troops to aid Russia, saying the nations "strongly condemn violations of multiple United Nations Security Council" resolutions by Pyongyang and Moscow, as well as "the decisions by the leaders of the DPRK and Russia to dangerously expand Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine."
The countries were using an acronym to refer to North Korea.