The United States has welcomed the upcoming meeting between the leaders of South Korea and Japan as a tangible manifestation of their efforts to advance bilateral relations.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price issued the position on Tuesday during a press briefing over the phone as he touched on President Yoon Suk Yeol’s two-day trip to Tokyo on Thursday for a bilateral summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

The spokesperson said that the U.S. encourages South Korea and Japan to continue to bolster bilateral relations, describing the upcoming summit as a “tangible manifestation” to do so by two staunch allies of the U.S.

Price also emphasized the importance of improving bilateral cooperation between Seoul and Tokyo in the context of a trilateral relationship of South Korea, the U.S. and Japan.

He added that the three-way partnership can, in some ways, more effectively address core challenges in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.