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The Japan Times (16 February 2020)

The top diplomats of Japan, the United States and South Korea on Saturday agreed to support China’s efforts to contain a deadly new coronavirus as the outbreak poses increasing health risks and threatens to undermine the global economy.

Meeting on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich, Germany, Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha also reaffirmed their cooperation on North Korea, according to Japan’s Foreign Ministry.

The coronavirus outbreak originating in the central Chinese city of Wuhan has rapidly spread, killing more than 1,600 and infecting over 68,000 in mainland China alone.

Hundreds more have tested positive in other countries that are scrambling to take countermeasures, and the International Monetary Fund has warned of a slowdown in the global economy as supply chains and tourism take a hit.

The U.S. Embassy was to send chartered planes Saturday to evacuate American citizens and their families from a cruise ship that has been quarantined in Yokohama port for nearly two weeks.

Motegi and his counterparts were “in agreement on their support for China’s measures to stem the virus’s spread, and that as part of the international community they would provide assistance,” Japan’s Foreign Ministry said.

The ministers also discussed North Korea’s weapons program and efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has pledged to unveil a “new strategic weapon,” possibly breaking his promise with U.S. President Donald Trump not to carry out intercontinental ballistic missile and nuclear tests.

Read more at: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/02/16/national/politics-diplomacy/motegi-discusses-north-korea-u-s-south-korean-counterparts-munich-security-meet/#.Xko1vWgzY2w