Photo : YONHAP News
South Korea and Japan have held their inaugural vice-ministerial talks between their foreign and defense ministries, seeking to strengthen cooperation on a range of security issues.
According to the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, officials from both nations held their “two-plus-two” meeting at the ministry’s offices in Seoul on Thursday.
First Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo and Vice Minister of National Defense Lee Doo-hee met with their Japanese counterparts, Vice Foreign Minister Takehiro Funakoshi and Vice Defense Minister Koji Kano.
The security policy consultation between the two countries’ foreign and defense authorities has been upgraded from the director-general level to the vice-ministerial level for the first time this year.
The discussions likely focused on ways to enhance bilateral and trilateral security cooperation involving the United States in light of the rapidly changing security landscape and complex challenges in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly with North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities advancing.
Ministry officials said the ongoing crisis in the Middle East, including the de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, was also on the agenda.
Seoul and Tokyo launched their bilateral security consultations in 1998.
Since then, talks have been periodically interrupted by fluctuations in bilateral relations.
The last consultation took place in Tokyo in November 2024.