Park to coordinate N.K. squeeze at nuclear summit

President Park Geun-hye is leaving for Washington on Wednesday to attend the Nuclear Security Summit, where she will also hold a series of talks with leaders of the U.S., China and Japan to coordinate their steps on North Korea in the wake of its new nuclear and missile tests.

Park will meet separately with U.S. President Barack Obama, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday, Cheong Wa Dae said Tuesday. Her schedule also includes a separate trilateral session with Obama and Abe on the same day.

The back-to-back talks come as the three countries ratchet up pressure on the Kim Jong-un regime to desert its nuclear ambitions, respectively levying a fresh batch of unilateral sanctions in addition to the latest U.N. Security Council resolution. Beijing, for its part, is seen taking punitive steps targeting border trade, port entry and other areas.

“During the three-way summit, the leaders are expected to have in-depth discussions on their joint response to North Korean nuclear threats,” senior presidential secretary on foreign policy and security Kim Kyou-hyun told reporters.

“In particular, they will focus on driving the implementation of the UNSC resolution and their individual sanctions, as well as the international community’s pressure against the North.”

Park’s reunion with Obama will be her first official event in the U.S. capital. The presidents will explore how to work together to enforce international and standalone sanctions in order to change Pyongyang’s “strategic calculations and behavior,” Kim noted.

Park and Abe’s meeting will be an extension of their recent efforts to mend fences after years of historical and territorial spats, especially since the December settlement of the “comfort women” issue.

The trilateral talks with Obama and Abe the same day comes as Washington has volunteered to play a bridging role and was propelled by Pyongyang’s constant provocations. Obama had also engineered their first three-way gathering on the sidelines of the nuclear security conference in The Hague two years ago.

“(The tripartite) meeting will be an opportunity for the three leaders to discuss common responses to the threat posed by North Korea and to advance areas of trilateral security cooperation in the region and globally,” the White House said in a statement.

Another focal point is whether the Park-Xi summit -- the first since the North’s Jan. 6 nuclear test -- would provide a chance to defuse lingering tension between the two countries and resuscitate momentum for stronger bilateral collaboration.

Despite Seoul’s widely broadcast confidence in its “best-ever” ties with Beijing, the North’s recent provocations, coupled with the planned stationing of advanced U.S. missile defense assets here, once again exposed the deep-rooted fault lines underlying the two countries’ strategic interests.

At the U.N., China’s opposition was a top source of unprecedentedly drawn-out negotiations over the resolution. Park managed to have a phone conversation with Xi only one month after Pyongyang detonated an atomic device.

While Seoul pulled out from a joint industrial park in North Korea and urged a “terminating resolution” on the nuclear issue following the Feb. 7 missile firing, Beijing abruptly floated the idea of launching peace treaty talks. Last month, Chinese Ambassador to South Korea Qiu Guohong came under fire after saying the bilateral relationship may be “destroyed” due to the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile battery.

“The meeting with President Xi will be an opportunity for the two leaders to reaffirm their resolve to develop the strategic cooperative partnership, and exchange in-depth views on the diligent implementation of the resolution and ways to strengthen bilateral communications regarding North Korea and its nuclear program,” Kim said.

On Friday, Park will meet with Argentina’s new President Mauricio Macri in Washington to discuss ways to deepen bilateral diplomatic and business cooperation, Kim added. She will then travel to Mexico on Saturday for a three-day visit.

By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)