/SOUTH KOREA: Japan, S. Korea To Hold Summit With U.S. After Bilateral Meeting Falls Through

Official sources confirmed that Japanese PM Kishida and South Korean President Yoon will hold a trilateral meeting with U.S. President Biden on the sidelines of a NATO summit on Wednesday.

• Leaders are expected to focus on the threat posed by North Korea's barrage of missile tests, which are believed to be leading to an imminent nuclear drill. Satellite images have suggested that the DPRK was making preparations for a nuclear weapons test.
• Over the weekend, North Korea celebrated the anniversary of the Korean War, vowing "revenge" for Western "aggression moves" conducted "in alliance with the South Korean puppet forces and the Japanese reactionaries."
• It will be the first such trilateral meeting in almost five years, when leaders met on the fringes of a UN General Assembly. Since then, tensions between Tokyo and Seoul have prevented high-level talks from taking place.
• While there were hopes that Kishida and Yoon could hold a bilateral summit, it is now believed that no such talks will take place, even in the form of a brief pull-aside meeting.
• Yonhap reports that a four-way summit between Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand is also unlikely to take place.