The Ministers of Foreign Affairs of South Korea, the United States, and Japan released a joint statement containing the commitment to pursue a "stronger North Korea policy." The core of the statement is a commitment to respond more firmly to threats from North Korea and to strengthen coordination to tighten sanctions against North Korea. The three ministers also noted that they support "Taiwan's meaningful participation in appropriate international organizations," issuing a clearer message to China than before.
Minister Cho Tae-yul of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Japan's Minister of Foreign Affairs Takeshi Iwaya at the Commerzbank meeting room near the Bayerischer Hof Hotel in Munich, Germany, where the Munich Security Conference (MSC) was taking place on the 15th (local time). This meeting was the first held after the inauguration of the second administration of Donald Trump in the United States.
Immediately after the meeting, the three ministers issued a statement reflecting their commitment to ▲strengthen South Korea-U.S.-Japan security cooperation ▲respond to threats from North Korea and North Korea's nuclear issues ▲enhance economic security and resilience ▲strengthen shared values and regional engagement. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs assessed that this meeting provided an opportunity to confirm the joint will of the three countries to continue developing South Korea-U.S.-Japan cooperation and to discuss future directions.
First, the three countries reaffirmed their firm commitment to the complete denuclearization of North Korea and agreed to further strengthen sanctions against North Korea. To this end, they decided to respond decisively to North Korea's sanctions violations and evasion activities, along with strong pressure on North Korea.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs explained that the joint statement included a commitment to "respond firmly to violations and evasion of United Nations Security Council resolutions, maintain and strengthen the international sanctions regime against North Korea, and apply pressure on North Korea to stop illegal activities that finance its nuclear and missile programs."
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also reported that the South Korea-U.S.-Japan ministers expressed grave concern about illegal military cooperation between Russia and North Korea and agreed that no compensation should be given to North Korea.
During the meeting, the three countries' position on countering China was also relatively clearly mentioned. In particular, the statement included the note that they "expressed support for Taiwan's meaningful participation in appropriate international organizations." This is the first time such content was included in a joint statement from the three countries, which is expected to provoke a backlash from China, emphasizing the "One China" principle.
The three ministers also emphasized in their statement the importance of maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait for the security and prosperity of the international community, stating, "We strongly oppose any unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion in the Indo-Pacific region, including the South China Sea."
Furthermore, the South Korea-U.S.-Japan ministers noted that their cooperation is expanding not only in diplomacy and security but also into economic security, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and semiconductors, and they agreed to continue active communication to expand this cooperation. They also decided to explore ways to enhance cooperation among the three countries in the energy sector, including liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Meanwhile, the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven (G7) major countries, including the U.S., Japan, the U.K., Canada, Germany, France, and Italy, reaffirmed the principles of North Korea's "complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization (CVID)" for the first time at a meeting since the inauguration of Trump's second administration.
The seven foreign ministers stated in a statement released after the Munich Security Conference that they "demanded that North Korea abandon all nuclear weapons, existing nuclear programs, and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missile programs in a complete, verifiable, and irreversible manner, in accordance with United Nations Security Council resolutions."