Photo/Illutration Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi, left, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup before a trilateral meeting in Singapore on June 11 (Provided by the Japanese Defense Ministry)

SINGAPORE--Japan, the United States and South Korea have agreed to resume joint military exercises last held in late 2017 in response to North Korea’s latest salvo of ballistic missile tests and concerns Pyongyang is gearing up for another nuclear test.

Nobuo Kishi, Lloyd Austin and Lee Jong-sup met June 11 on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue, a major annual security forum held here, to discuss the provocation from North Korea and other regional challenges.

The in-person meeting of the three top officials was the first such gathering since November 2019.

In a joint statement released afterward, the trio condemned North Korea’s weapons programs, which they said pose “a grave threat to international peace and stability.”

In response, they concurred that a resumption of trilateral warning and ballistic missile search and tracking exercises was warranted. They also pledged to “identify further trilateral actions,” according to the statement.

Joint training exercises involving the three countries were held six times from 2016 to 2017, when Pyongyang embarked on a flurry of missile launches.

December 2017 marked the last time they were held as ties between Tokyo and Seoul hit an all-time low over South Korean court rulings in 2018 ordering Japanese businesses to pay compensation to wartime Korean laborers and a dispute involving South Korea’s Navy and Japan’s Self-Defense Force’s patrol aircraft.

The latest meeting came about after the United States put pressure on its allies to repair their relations in the face of growing regional tensions triggered by North Korean and Chinese military activities.

The ministers also agreed to deepen trilateral security cooperation to promote a “free and open Indo-Pacific region,” including information sharing, high-level policy consultations and combined exercises.

The statement cited their “strong opposition to any unilateral actions that seek to alter the status quo and increase tensions in the region,” a veiled reference to China.

It also mentioned “the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” the first such mention in a document of the meeting of the three top defense officials.

Both Japan and South Korea depend on the U.S. nuclear umbrella for their security and Lloyd reaffirmed that the United States remains committed to providing extended deterrence capability to both countries.

Although Kishi and Lee acknowledged that relations between the two neighbors are important, they did not hold talks separately.




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