Seoul: South Korea, the United States, and Japan officially inaugurated a secretariat dedicated to trilateral cooperation on Wednesday, as announced by South Korea's foreign ministry. According to Bahrain News Agency, the launch of the Trilateral Secretariat took place shortly after the leaders of the three nations revealed the initiative during a summit held alongside the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Peru last Friday. The creation of the secretariat is a result of an agreement made between South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, US President Joe Biden, and then-Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the Camp David summit in August of the previous year. This new secretariat is seen as a crucial step in implementing the shared commitments among the three countries. These commitments include enhancing trilateral coordination and cooperation in tackling common challenges, notably North Korea's military threats. The secretariat's inaugural meeting was held in Seoul, led by Lee Won-woo, South Kor ea's Deputy Director General for North American Affairs; Robert Koepcke, US Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs; and Akihiro Okochi, Deputy Director General for Asian and Oceanian Affairs at Japan's foreign ministry. The role of secretary general and the operation of the secretariat will rotate among the three countries every two years, beginning with South Korea, followed by the US and Japan, as stated by the foreign ministry. At Wednesday's meeting, the representatives from the three nations "assessed the progress in trilateral cooperation since the Camp David summit and discussed the structure and operational plans for the secretariat," according to the ministry. South Korea, in collaboration with the US and Japan, aims to coordinate various ongoing projects in fields such as security, the economy, advanced technology, and people-to-people exchanges. The goal is to institutionalize and foster the continuous development of trilateral cooperation, the ministry added.
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