Secretary of State Marco Rubio met yesterday with Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu and ROK Foreign Minister Cho Hyun on the margins of the NATO Summit in Ankara to underscore that deeper trilateral cooperation tangibly benefits our shared economic well-being and advances safety, security, and prosperity in a free and open Indo-Pacific. The Secretary and his counterparts emphasized the importance of NATO’s cooperation with Indo-Pacific Partners, including on issues of mutual interest – accelerating defense spending and production, energy, combatting cyber and hybrid attacks, and sharing information on security developments and challenges in the broader Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions.
The Secretary and Foreign Ministers signed a trilateral memorandum of cooperation on civil nuclear energy in support of accelerating the deployment of small modular reactors in third partner countries, as well as diversification towards U.S. energy imports. They also underscored recent progress on trilateral cooperation in regional security and global engagement, economic security, and critical and emerging technologies. The Secretary and Foreign Ministers reiterated their opposition to economic coercion and the weaponization of supply chains for political ends. They reaffirmed their commitment to appropriately derisk and diversify critical supply chains. They committed to trilateral cooperation to preserve freedom of navigation. Lastly, they welcomed new areas of trilateral consultations including on international disaster relief.
Additionally, the Secretary and the Foreign Ministers reiterated their shared commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). They also committed to strengthen trilateral cooperation to deter the DPRK’s malicious cyber and information technology worker activities and reiterated their commitment to the immediate resolution of the issues of abductees, detainees, and unrepatriated prisoners of war as well as the issue of separated families.
The Secretary and the Foreign Ministers emphasized the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and expressed concern about increasingly frequent destabilizing actions around Taiwan. They also encouraged the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues and opposed any attempts to unilaterally change the status quo, particularly by force or coercion.
The Secretary and Foreign Ministers reaffirmed the commitments reflected in the U.S.-Japan-ROK trilateral joint statement of September 22, 2025, and respective bilateral deliverables from the President’s March summit with Japanese Prime Minster Takaichi and from the November 13, 2025 Joint Fact Sheet with ROK President Lee. The Secretary and the Foreign Ministers committed to continuing trilateral meetings at all levels.
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