LIVE: Blinken Meets With South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs

evidence again of the confidence that we have in the future and so many other things. It's wonderful to have the opportunity for us to speak after the 2 plus 2 meeting. Thank you Tony and good afternoon. Well Secretary Blinken and I just finished the in-depth discussions at the 2 plus 2 meeting this morning and over lunch where we covered a wide range of issues of our common interest. As we both emphasized during the joint press conference just completed, we condemned 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 we confirmed our commitment to the denuclearization 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 to 2 plus 2. In fact since I took office in January this year I've 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 and our seamless coordination on all policies and actions and our commitment to reach a shared goal. So I'm confident that I will have another round of fruitful discussions at today's 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 on each and every point. Thank you. Thanks everyone.