From left: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida conduct a joint press conference following a trilateral summit meeting at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland on Friday. (Yonhap)
Seoul's top diplomat said Monday the government explained to Beijing the results of a recent trilateral summit between the leaders of South Korea, the United States and Japan soon after the gathering.
President Yoon Suk Yeol and his US and Japanese counterparts, Joe Biden and Fumio Kishida, respectively, held a summit at the US presidential retreat of Camp David in Maryland last week, where they adopted a series of documents that outlined their commitments to enhance security and economic cooperation in the midst of an intensifying Sino-US global hegemony rivalry.
In an interview with Yonhap News TV, South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin said Seoul "explained in detail" the results of the meeting through diplomatic channels following the Camp David gathering.
In a joint statement following the trilateral summit, Seoul, Washington and Beijing expressed their shared concerns about "actions inconsistent with the rules-based international order," recalling their individually announced positions on the "dangerous and aggressive behavior supporting unlawful maritime claims" by China in the South China Sea.
"In early August in the South China Sea, a Chinese coast guard vessel reportedly fired water cannons at a Philippine vessel. This incident served as an example of such aggressive behavior," Park said.
The minister, however, stressed the trilateral gathering was not conducted "to exclude any particular country or target specific forces."
On bilateral ties with Beijing, Park said Seoul wants to "foster a mature and healthy relationship with China."
"As such a relationship should be built on a foundation of mutual respect and mutual benefit, we intend to maintain a stable relationship with China through communication in the future," Park said.
On the issue of the Fukushima water release, Park said the focus of the tripartite summit was to "discuss common and most important areas of cooperation among the three nations," and that "there was prior consent not to include the contaminated water issue on the agenda" of the summit.
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