U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will head to Japan, South Korea and India subsequent week after his conferences within the Middle East to advance efforts to “support a free and open Indo-Pacific region.”

Senior U.S. officers informed reporters on Thursday that the United States maintains its give attention to the Indo-Pacific area, regardless of grappling with different international challenges, together with Israel’s warfare with Hamas and Russia’s warfare in Ukraine.

G7 international ministers will meet in Tokyo November 7-8. Blinken will maintain talks along with his G7 counterparts and have separate talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Foreign Minster Yoko Kamikawa.

“We anticipate that discussions in those meetings will focus on events in the Middle East, support for Ukraine, cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, a range of bilateral issues, and of course trilateral cooperation” with South Korea, mentioned Daniel Kritenbrink, the State Department’s assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.

While Blinken has met with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin on different events, he’ll maintain his first face-to-face talks in Seoul with each subsequent week.

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This 12 months marks the seventieth anniversary of the alliance between the U.S. and South Korea. Kritenbrink mentioned the army cooperation between North Korea and Russia and its safety implications might be excessive on the agenda of Blinken’s talks. Washington and Seoul have vowed to boost joint deterrence in opposition to rising threats from Pyongyang.

From Seoul, Blinken will journey to New Delhi.

“Secretary Blinken will be in India on November 10. He will be joined by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. They will be traveling to India for the annual 2+2 Dialogue,” mentioned Donald Lu, the State Department’s assistant secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs.

The U.S. delegation will meet with India’s Minister for External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Minister of Defense Rajnath Singh, and different senior Indian officers.

The U.S.-India 2+2 Dialogue started in 2018 and has allowed the 2 nations to have high-level discussions about strategic and protection points. In current years, a key a part of the two+2 Dialogue has been protection co-production with India.

India has condemned the October 7 Hamas assault on Israel as “a terrorist attack” and has known as for sustained humanitarian entry to Gaza.

“With India, we share the goals of preventing this conflict from spreading, preserving stability in the Middle East, and advancing a two-state solution,” mentioned Lu.