Defense Ministers of Korea, the US, and Japan Sign 'Security Cooperation Framework'... "Regularization of Exercises"

Minister of National Defense Shin Won-sik (from the left), Minoru Kihara, Japan's Minister of Defense, and Lloyd Austin, U.S. Secretary of Defense, met at the Ministry of Defense in Tokyo, Japan. [Image source=Yonhap News]

The defense ministers of South Korea, the United States, and Japan agreed on the 28th to regularize joint exercises and trilateral security cooperation.

According to foreign media including the Nikkei newspaper, on the morning of the same day, Defense Minister Shin Won-sik, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and Japan’s Minister of Defense Kihara Minoru held talks at the Ministry of Defense in Tokyo and signed the "ROK-U.S.-Japan Security Cooperation Framework Memorandum of Cooperation" containing these details.

The ROK-U.S.-Japan Security Cooperation Framework institutionalizes high-level policy consultations, North Korean missile information sharing, trilateral exercises, and defense exchange cooperation. It also includes trilateral security cooperation contributing to peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula, the South China Sea, the Indo-Pacific region, and beyond. To this end, the three countries agreed to regularly hold high-level meetings such as the Trilateral Defense Ministers Meeting (TMM), the Joint Chiefs of Staff Meeting, and the Defense Technology and Trade Meeting (DTT) on a rotating basis.

To effectively operate the real-time sharing system for North Korean missile warning information, they agreed to strengthen communication and cooperation and to conduct trilateral exercises such as "Freedom’s Edge" regularly and systematically based on a multi-year trilateral exercise plan.

This trilateral cooperation follows up on the agreement to strengthen security and military cooperation made at the ROK-U.S.-Japan summit held at Camp David, U.S., in August last year. The three ministers met last month on June 2 during the Asia Security Conference (Shangri-La Dialogue) and met again in Tokyo about 50 days later.

The visit of the South Korean Minister of National Defense to Japan’s Ministry of Defense is the first in 15 years since then-Minister Lee Sang-hee in 2009. This is the first time that the defense ministers of South Korea, the United States, and Japan have met in Japan.

The three ministers agreed to hold next year’s Defense Ministers Meeting in South Korea.