CAMP DAVID, Md. — The United States, Japan and South Korea have agreed to a new security pledge committing the three countries to consult with each other in the event of a security crisis or threat in the Pacific, according to Biden administration officials.
Details about the new “duty to consult” commitment emerged as President Joe Biden prepared Friday to welcome South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a summit at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland.
The agreement is one of several joint efforts that the leaders are expected to announce at the daylong summit, as the three countries look to tighten security and economic ties amid increasing concerns about North Korea's persistent nuclear threats and China's provocations in the Pacific.
“Suffice it to say, this is a big deal,” Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Friday shortly before Kishida and Yoon were to arrive at Camp David. “It is a historic event, and it sets the conditions for a more peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific, and a stronger and more secure United States of America,”
Kishida, before departing Tokyo on Thursday, told reporters the summit would be a “historic occasion to bolster trilateral strategic cooperation” with Seoul and Washington.
“I believe it is extremely meaningful to hold a Japan-U.S.-South Korea summit where leaders of the three…
