By Ankit Panda
The trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit was necessary ahead of Obama’s trip to Asia.
This week, on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague, Netherlands, U.S. President Barack Obama, South Korean President Park Geun-hye, and Japanese President Shinzo Abe met in a trilateral setting to discuss regional security. The meeting marks the first official high-level meeting between Park Geun-hye and Shinzo Abe and comes at a time when relations between Japan and South Korea are strained by the legacy of Japan’s imperial past.
The trilateral summit is a result of the ongoing effort by Washington to ease the tensions between its two allies in northeast Asia. Traditionally, the United States has avoided mediating between South Korea and Japan over their disagreements (including a territorial dispute over the Dokdo/Takeshima islands). However, the distance between Abe and Park is more pronounced than any pair of leaders in Japan and South Korea in recent memory. Shinzo Abe’s right wing rhetoric and interest in revising Japan’s post-World War II “peace constitution” has earned him the scorn of his neighbors. Mistrust of Abe is not only reserved to the South Korean leader; public opinion in South Korea is squarely opposed to Abe as well – even the despised North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is viewed more favorably than Abe.
Read the full story at The Diplomat