Obama meets with South Korean president

Obama made the comment Friday during a joint press conference with South Korean President Park Geun-hye when the topic of the Iran nuclear deal came up and whether such a deal could be made with North Korea.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye said on Thursday she hoped a three-way summit to be held between her country, China and Japan would be an opportunity to improve regional stability and South Korea’s relations with Japan. North Korea will certainly be a primary topic, as will the need to improve South Korea-Japan relations.

Park quickly sought to reassure Washington, meeting for lunch with Vice President Biden on Thursday to discuss “common strategic interests”, according to the vice president’s office.

Speaking on a go to to Washington, Park additionally stated she was open to a bilateral assembly with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, however burdened the significance of progress on the difficulty of consolation ladies pressured to work in Japan’s wartime army brothels.

These results may sound like usual rhetoric and nothing new, but they were still highly meaningful, considering that critics have increasingly raised questions about whether South Korea is getting too close to China and about whether the U.S.is still interested in resolving the nuclear issue. Notably, the statement reemphasizes the United States’ position on welcoming South Korea into the recently concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership.

In his meetings with Park and Han, Carter strongly reassured both leaders of the ironclad USA commitment to South Korea’s defense, the statement said.

Last month, Park met with her Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing, followed by a summit between Obama and Xi in Washington.

After an extended period of glacial diplomatic mistrust, there are signs that South Korea and Japan, with prodding from their mutual U.S. military ally, are making genuine, albeit hesitant, moves towards normalization.

The visit is a chance for President Obama to reflect on how long-term USA strategy toward Seoul applies to contemporary strategic decisions. She oversees a nation of 50 million that sports the world’s 13th largest economy; relies on 28,000 United States troops; and shares a peninsula with North Korea, which is estimated to possess sufficient fissile material to produce 22 nuclear weapons.

The two leaders are expected to stress cooperation on a range of global issues from health to cyber security, as well as collaboration on an unmanned mission to the moon. They also warned the North not to conduct missile or nuclear tests or else face stronger United Nations sanctions and other consequences.

South Korea finds itself at the epicenter of a geostrategic danger zone that is all the more fragile today as a result of frictions resulting from China’s rise.