TRIPARTITE MEETING OF FOREIGN MINISTERS

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The foreign ministers of South Korea, Japan and the U.S. have met for the first time in two months in New York. They again vowed for a stern response against North Korea's nuclear program. Seoul says the Korea-Japan summit held the day before has paved the way for improving bilateral ties. Tokyo, for its part, reiterated its previous stance on wartime forced labor.

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The foreign ministers of South Korea, Japan and the U.S. met in New York, where the U.N. General Assembly is taking place. It's their first meeting since the G20 foreign ministers meeting held in Indonesia in July. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said trilateral cooperation among South Korea, the U.S. and Japan is as important as bilateral cooperation between the nations.

[Soundbite] Antony Blinken(U.S. Secretary of State) : "We are even more and more effective, not only in dealing with many regional security issues that are reported, but with a whole series of global issues."

Seoul says the agenda of the meeting was topped by a joint response to North Korea's nuclear issues including the signs of a seventh nuclear test.

[Soundbite] Park Jin(Foreign Minister) : "We agreed that S. Korea needs to prepare a stern response against the North’s nuclear threat through close cooperation among S. Korea, the U.S. and Japan."

The presidential office says the Korea-Japan summit held the day before was meaningful in many ways and paved the way for mending bilateral relations. Japanese PM Fumio Kishida held a separate press conference after meeting with President Yoon Suk-yeol. He vowed to restore Korea-Japan relations to a sound level and communicate with Seoul based on Tokyo's consistent attitude. This seems to mean that Tokyo has no plans at this point to change its stance on the issue of wartime forced labor and wants Seoul to step in first. Kishida said nothing is decided yet on bilateral summits in the future. Pundits say the meeting has revealed existing differences in the two countries' stances on wartime forced labor and multiple hurdles lying ahead in the improvement of bilateral relations.