(LEAD) S. Korea, U.S., Japan finalize plan to hold trilateral summit on sidelines of NATO summit

All News 16:34 June 26, 2022

(ATTN: CHANGES headline; UPDATES throughout with more details)

SEOUL, June 26 (Yonhap) -- President Yoon Suk-yeol will hold a trilateral meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Spain this week on the sidelines of a NATO summit, his office said Sunday.

The trilateral summit, set for Wednesday in Madrid, will be the first such gathering in four years and nine months since the last meeting was held in September 2017 on the margins of a U.N. General Assembly. No trilateral meeting has since taken place amid badly frayed relations between Seoul and Tokyo.

The relations between the two countries have shown signs of a thaw since Yoon took office as South Korea's president with a pledge to improve ties with the neighboring nation, spurring speculation that Yoon and Kishida could hold a one-on-one summit in Spain.

But no such meeting, whether it be an official bilateral summit or a pull-aside meeting, is likely to take place, officials said. A four-way summit between South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand is also unlikely to take place, officials said.

Yoon plans to depart for Spain on Monday for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit set for Wednesday and Thursday. The trip will mark his debut on the multilateral diplomatic stage since taking office last month.

South Korea is not a member of the military alliance but has been invited as a partner nation, along with other countries that include Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Yoon is expected to hold a series of bilateral meetings with leaders from Canada, Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark and the Czech Republic to discuss ways to expand economic cooperation, according to his office.