President Barack Obama has scored a small but significant diplomatic coup by bringing together the leaders of key Asian allies Japan and South Korea for their first face-to-face meeting since they both took office more than a year ago.
Most Japanese leaders meet their South Korean counterparts within the first year in office. The failure of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-Hye to sit down with each other within that period of time has been a source of deep concern for the United States.
Knowing that all three would be in the Netherlands to attend the third installment of Obama's nuclear security summit, the White House arranged a meeting among the three leaders. Yesterday Obama played middle man, with Park seated to his right and Abe to his left.
Addressing the media before the meeting, the leaders focused on the security threat posed by North Korea.
But it is also no secret that diplomatic ties between Asia's two wealthiest democracies have been severely strained due to South Korea's lingering resentment over Japanese misconduct during World War II. That includes Japan's wartime system in which thousands of Korean and other women were forced to provide sex in military brothels, and suspicions of Abe's nationalist and revisionist tendencies.
Tensions between the countries worsened after Abe in December visited a major shrine honoring Japanese war dead.
Obama said the leaders were united by "our shared concern about North Korea and its nuclear weapons program."
"Close coordination between our three countries has succeeded in changing the game with North Korea, and our trilateral cooperation has sent a strong signal to Pyongyang that its provocations and threats will be met with a unified response and that the US commitment to the security of both Japan and the Republic of Korea is unwavering, and that a nuclear North Korea is unacceptable," Obama said.
Since pulling out of six-party talks aimed at ending its nuclear program in exchange for financial assistance in 2009, North Korea has conducted a long-range rocket test, its second nuclear test and, most recently, multiple launches of short-range rockets.
A North Korean diplomat Monday criticized the US for conducting military exercises near its borders and accused the US of undermining prospects for undermining the prospect of improved relations with South Korea.
Park said North Korea should change its behavior.
"Should North Korea embark on a path toward denuclearisation on the basis of sincerity, then there will be a way forward to address the difficulties confronting the North Korean people," she said.
Abe told reporters earlier yesterday that he was looking to a "future-oriented relationship" with South Korea. At the appearance with Obama, the Japanese leader said he was "so very happy to be able to see" Park.
