hankyoreh

Choi Young-sam, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, delivers a press briefing on March 31. (Lee Je-hun/The Hankyoreh)

South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Thursday that the government continues to hold that “military cooperation with Japan would only be possible if bilateral trust were to be restored and a public consensus were to form” about such cooperation.

That was how MOFA spokesperson Choi Young-sam responded during a briefing with domestic and foreign reporters on Thursday afternoon when a journalist mentioned a media report that Seoul had rejected repeated proposals by Washington and Tokyo to hold trilateral military exercises and asked whether that report was true.

Instead of answering the question directly, Choi said that military cooperation with Japan would be premature, effectively confirming the report’s accuracy.

“However, we agree about the importance of trilateral security cooperation with the US and Japan in responding to the threat of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missiles,” Choi added.

Shortly after Choi’s briefing, MOFA conveyed the same information to the pool of reporters in a text message titled “Our Government’s Position in Regard to Military Exercises with the US and Japan.”

The Hankyoreh reported earlier that the South Korean government had recently rejected repeated proposals by the US and Japanese governments to hold trilateral military exercises in the waters around the Korean Peninsula.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]