YOON TO HOLD TALKS WITH U.S. & JAPAN

[Anchor Lead]

President Yoon is to attend the ASEAN Plus 3 and G20 summits in Cambodia and Indonesia from Friday. Yoon personally said he's set to hold talks with the leaders of the U.S. and Japan.

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President Yoon will embark on his first diplomatic tour of Southeast Asia since inauguration. First stop: Cambodia on Friday for the Korea-ASEAN summit. He will meet with ASEAN leaders for three days to outline Korea's new Indo-Pacific strategy. Yoon will likely discuss national security and economic cooperation. For now it's unclear how his strategies will differ from the previous administration's New Southern Policy.

[Soundbite] Kim Sung-han(Nat‘l Security advisor) : "The completion of the regional diplomacy represented by the Indo-Pacific strategy will outline the basic framework of Pres. Yoon's foreign policy."

Yoon is also set to attend the G20 summit in Bali. He will meet with business leaders from various nations to promote economic diplomacy.

[Soundbite] Choi Sang-mok(Senior Pres. Secretary for economic affairs) : "The keyword of this economic diplomacy is first of all, sales diplomacy. Second is strengthening the high-tech sector's supply chain."

It's still unclear if the president will hold bilateral talks with global leaders attending the G20 meeting. Seoul and Washington are still negotiating a possible bilateral summit to discuss the Inflation Reduction Act. Nothing decided yet on a summit with Japan to discuss past issues. The prospect of a summit with China, last held in December 2019, is even more unclear. A presidential office official said Yoon would meet President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit anyway, which could serve as an opportunity to resume communication. The remarks imply the two sides have not even discussed an agenda yet. However, plans have been finalized for a trilateral summit of the leaders of Seoul, Washington and Tokyo to discuss Pyongyang's escalating provocations. In a press briefing on Thursday morning, the president said he is scheduled to meet with his American and Japanese counterparts on the sidelines of the G20 event.