Remarks With Foreign Ministers of Japan & ROK

Remarks With Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, and Republic of Korea Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se Before Their Meeting

Remarks

John Kerry
Secretary of State

Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei

July 1, 2013

SECRETARY KERRY: Minister Kishida, thank you for hosting us. And Minister Yun, thank you very much. I want to thank you both for our meetings in your respective countries, and I want to congratulate Minister Yun on his visit with his President – President Park’s visit to China. It was a very good visit, important for all of us.

The three of us, our countries, are working very, very hard together on a number of critical issues, and we want to say thank you to you for the quality of the cooperation, which is important not just to our countries, but it’s important to the region. The cooperative effort between the United States, Japan, and the Republic of Korea, has made a difference, not only with respect to the North Korean provocations, but it has sent a strong signal about the strength of our alliance, and I think it’s sent a strong signal about other interests that we have, particularly maritime security, issues with respect to regional security, and that’s what we’re here to affirm today. We join you in making it absolutely clear that the policy of the United States, together with the Republic of Korea and Japan, is the denuclearization of the – North Korea.

I just had a bilateral meeting with the Chinese Foreign Minister, with Wang Yi, and we both reaffirmed strongly the seriousness with which we are both committed, we are all committed, with China, to the policy of denuclearization. So now we have to make sure we translate commitment to the policy into the reality of achieving policy through the denuclearization itself. And we will continue that discussion in a few days in Washington in a strategic and economic dialogue with China, and we look forward to working with you to accomplish this goal.

So let me just say thank you for the strength of this relationship. This relationship, the three of us here, is really the foundation of the strategic relationship of this region, and it has proven its durability, it’s proven its value, and today we look forward to further discussions about how we go in the next steps in terms of our cooperative efforts. So thank you very much, Mr. Minister.

ENDS

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