Foreign Minister Park Jin said that the most urgent task is to steadily advance discussions between South Korea and the United States at their bilateral nuclear consultative body and that the regular deployment of U.S. nuclear strategic assets to South Korea is especially important.

Appearing on a KBS program on Sunday, Park presented the assessment regarding the South Korea-U.S. Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG), which was established under the Washington Declaration adopted by President Yoon Suk Yeol and U.S. President Joe Biden during their April summit.

Minister Park said that in the second NCG meeting on Friday in the United States, the two sides reviewed the progress made at the inaugural meeting in July and set goals to be reached until the third meeting.

In the second NCG meeting, the allies agreed to complete the establishment of guidelines on the planning and operation of a shared nuclear strategy by the middle of next year. The two sides also discussed building a mobile system to enable immediate communication between the leaders of the two nations in case of a crisis.

Minister Park emphasized the need for regular deployment of U.S. strategic assets to the Korean Peninsula to demonstrate power to deter North Korea's nuclear and missile provocations and make South Koreans feel safe.

Regarding relations between South Korea and Japan, Park assessed that bilateral ties have been normalized.

He added that a trilateral summit between South Korea, China and Japan is likely to take place in the first half of next year, at the latest.