열린장관실

I welcome the visit by Senior Deputy Minister Funakoshi and Assistant Minister Nong to Seoul.

This Trilateral Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) is truly meaningful, as it is the first SOM being held after nearly four years.

Trilateral cooperation among the three countries is important for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Northeast Asian region and beyond.

Korea, Japan, and China are close neighbors that cannot be separated from each other.  The three countries occupy 7% of the world’s land area, but account for 20% of the world’s population and 25% of global GDP.

In particular, the three countries will all serve as UN Security Council members next year. The international society has high expectations for the roles and responsibilities of the three countries.

In the future, our three countries should make active efforts to further institutionalize the trilateral cooperation mechanism.

The first standalone Trilateral Summit was held in 2008, and the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat(TCS) was established in 2011, laying the groundwork for institutionalizing trilateral cooperation. However, the path since then has not always been easy, as it experienced many ups and downs.

Now, I hope the three countries will communicate and work closely together, by embracing once again the original spirit in which the trilateral mechanism was first established in 2008.

I am pleased that there is a consensus among three countries regarding the need to hold the Trilateral Summit.

As Chair of the 9th Trilateral Summit, I ask the SOM leaders to work closely together to make Summit possible within this year.

I hope the SOM leaders will do their very best to make this happen.

Public interest and expectations are running high for the revitalization of trilateral consultative mechanism, since it has been long stalled. It is therefore important to produce tangible outcomes which will produce benefits that can be felt by the people of the three countries.

As such, I ask the SOM leaders to work hard and identify diverse deliverables that will benefit the people.

Teamwork is very important in forming a great orchestra.

I hope we can work closely together to play the harmonious triple concerto of trilateral cooperation among Korea, Japan, and China.