The Korea Times
South Korea and Japan need to strengthen their bilateral security cooperation to cope with the United States’ dispersed attention in the region to grapple with the conflict in the Middle East, former Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Wednesday. Speaking at ASAN Plenum 2026, Ishiba also said the two East Asian neighbors should take the lead on discussions at the United Nations about the disrupted oil supply in the Strait of Hormuz as a security measure based on U.N. resolutions. “Amid an increasingly severe security environment in the Western Pacific, the U.S. continues to face a situation in which it must divide its attention and resources with the Middle East,” Ishiba said at the forum hosted by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. The former Japanese prime minister was a keynote speaker at the gathering that explored a new direction on the U.S.-led alliance under the theme, “Modernizing Alliances.” He described the security environment in the Western Pacific — which includes countries in East Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania — as “increasingly tense,” poin
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