Obama, Park and Abe to discuss DPRK on March 31
US President Barack Obama will meet with the Republic of Korea (RoK)'s President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on March 31 to discuss the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s nuclear program, the White House said March 28.
The meeting on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington will take place the same day Obama talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
"This meeting will be an opportunity for the three leaders to discuss common responses to the threat posed by the DPRK and to advance areas of trilateral security cooperation in the region and globally," the White House said in a statement.
Relations between Park and Abe have been frosty in the past, but the two have been brought together in recent months by shared concerns about the DPRK, which conducted a fourth nuclear bomb test on Jan. 6 and launched a long-range rocket into space last month.
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The United States has been keen to encourage better relations between Seoul and Japan, its two biggest allies in Asia, given concerns not only about the DPRK but also an increasingly assertive China.
Beijing has said Xi will push Obama to resume talks on the DPRK's nuclear issue. Their meeting could also touch on US concerns about Chinese computer hacking and Beijing's assertive pursuit of territory in the East Sea.
Obama, Park and Abe last met trilaterally on the sidelines of the previous Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague in 2014, but only at the cajoling of the US president.
Last November, Abe and Park held their first formal bilateral talks since taking office and the following month Japan and the RoK reached a landmark agreement to resolve their long-running dispute over women forced to work in Japan's wartime brothels.
