▲ South Korea's Foreign Minister Cho Hyun and Japan's Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi shake hands in this file photo taken on Oct. 29, 2025. (Yonhap)

S Korea-Japan FM talks

Top diplomats of Seoul, Tokyo reaffirm ties, 3-way cooperation with U.S.

SEOUL, July 8 (Yonhap) -- Foreign Minister Cho Hyun has met with his Japanese counterpart, Toshimitsu Motegi, in Turkey and discussed ways to bolster bilateral ties and trilateral cooperation also involving the United States, Seoul's foreign ministry said Wednesday.

The meeting took place Tuesday (local time) in Ankara on the sidelines of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit and also followed a three-way meeting of the top diplomats of Seoul, Washington and Tokyo, according to the ministry.

At the meeting, Cho and Motegi pledged to deepen bilateral ties and expand cooperation between their countries, the ministry said.

They also pointed to the "shuttle diplomacy" between the two nations' leaders as a driving force behind collaboration across multiple sectors and agreed to build on that momentum so citizens of both countries feel the benefits more directly.

The two held talks at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the southeastern South Korean city of Gyeongju in October.

At the latest trilateral meeting, Cho, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Motegi reaffirmed their commitment to denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and to pursuing continued dialogue with North Korea.

The three nations also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for accelerating cooperation on small modular reactor (SMR) deployments in countries in the Indo-Pacific.

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