Defense chiefs from Japan, the U.S. and South Korea on Sunday agreed to a landmark security cooperation framework to help "institutionalize" trilateral defense ties — part of a bid to make them more difficult to reverse, just months before the United States inaugurates its next president in January.
The memorandum of cooperation — which is not legally binding — was signed in Tokyo after talks between Defense Minister Minoru Kihara, South Korean defense chief Shin Won-sik, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, as the three look to counter the increasingly sophisticated threat presented by North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs in what they called a “new era of trilateral cooperation.”
Effective immediately, the agreement institutionalizes three-way defense engagement, including senior-level policy consultations, information-sharing, trilateral exercises and defense exchange cooperation to “contribute to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, in the Indo-Pacific region, and beyond,” according to a joint statement.