From left: Andrew Winternitz, US deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia; Woo Kyung-seok, South Korea’s deputy director-general for international policy; and Osamu Ashizuka, director for Japan-US defense cooperation at Japan’s Ministry of Defense, pose for a photo following their working-level meeting at the Defense Ministry in Yongsan-gu, Seoul. (Courtesy of South Korea's Defense Ministry)
From left: Andrew Winternitz, US deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia; Woo Kyung-seok, South Korea’s deputy director-general for international policy; and Osamu Ashizuka, director for Japan-US defense cooperation at Japan’s Ministry of Defense, pose for a photo following their working-level meeting at the Defense Ministry in Yongsan-gu, Seoul. (Courtesy of South Korea's Defense Ministry)

South Korea, the United States and Japan held a working-level meeting in Seoul this week in preparation for the next round of Defense Trilateral Talks, the three countries' vice-ministerial-level security dialogue, the Defense Ministry said Thursday.

The meeting took place Tuesday and Wednesday at the Defense Ministry headquarters in Yongsan, central Seoul, with participation from Andrew Winternitz, US deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia; Woo Kyung-seok, South Korea’s deputy director-general for international policy; and Osamu Ashizuka, director for Japan-US defense cooperation at Japan’s Ministry of Defense.

The meeting included a tabletop exercise in which the three sides discussed coordinated responses to hypothetical regional security scenarios. Following the session, they reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening trilateral defense cooperation.

The DDT, largely expected in the first half of this year, would mark the 16th edition of the talks and the first under US President Donald Trump’s second administration. The previous DTT was held in Seoul on Sept. 10, 2024.


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