LVIE: Blinken Meets With South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs

very powerful evidence of the confidence that Korea has in the United States. In our future, just as we are the second largest investor in Korea, evidence again of the confidence that we have in the future. About that, the work we're doing together on emerging technologies, it's wonderful to have you here today and have the opportunity for us to speak after 2 plus 2. Thank you, Tony, and good afternoon. Well, Secretary Blinken and I just finished the in-depth discussions at the 2 plus 2 where we covered a wide range of issues of common interest. As we both emphasized during the joint press conference just completed, we condemn the deepening North Korea-Russia military cooperation, especially the recent deployment of North Korean troops to Russia and North Korea's repeated provocative actions, including its ICBM test launch yesterday. And we also confirm our commitment to the demilitarization of North Korea and the U.S. commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea under any circumstances. At the meeting this afternoon with Secretary Blinken, we will have more focused discussions on the selected issues of priorities as a follow-up. In fact, since I took office in January this year, I have met with Secretary Blinken more than 10 times in bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral settings. The frequency of our meeting itself, I think, represents the strength of our strong alliance, our seamless coordination on all policies and actions, and our commitment to reach a shared goal. So I'm confident that we'll have another round of fruitful discussions at this meeting, while taking stock of the progress we have made so far, and addressing any outstanding tasks ahead, and reaching all common agreements on policies and actions, 100 percent alignment over each year.