South Korea, US, Japan Sign MOU to Boost SMR Deployment in Indo-Pacific

By Song Sang-ho

WASHINGTON, July 7 (Yonhap) -- The top diplomats of South Korea, the United States and Japan on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to establish a framework for trilateral cooperation on accelerating small modular reactor (SMR) deployments in other countries in the Indo-Pacific, the State Department said.

South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi inked the MOU on the sidelines of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Ankara, Turkey.

"The MOU outlines opportunities for our three countries, which have complementary advantages in the civil nuclear field, to encourage mutually beneficial cooperation among their respective nuclear industries," the department said in a media note.

"This framework aims to foster fleet deployment models that de-risk project development, achieve economies of scale, catalyze private investment, streamline licensing processes, and optimize supply chains," it added.

The department stressed that a coordinated trilateral approach on the matter positions South Korean, U.S. and Japanese firms to provide regional partners with more competitive alternatives to meet their growing energy demands and to uphold the "highest" standards of nuclear safety, security and nonproliferation.

To support the initiative, the U.S. is committing more than $10 million in new funding for a State Department program to provide technical support to Indo-Pacific countries for the deployment of safe, secure and reliable nuclear energy, according to the department.

"Funds will advance SMR project development activities and establish an SMR regional training hub for workforce development," it said.

At the signing ceremony, Rubio painted a positive outlook for trilateral cooperation on SMRs through the MOU.

"This memorandum of understanding between our three nations today allows us to move forward on joint work on small modular reactors, which is going to be in many ways the future of energy generation in a very safe, efficient way, cost-effective way that will make our economies stronger," he said.

The secretary also pointed to the improvement in relations between South Korea and Japan -- the two U.S. treaty allies that have long grappled with historical tensions stemming from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

"I'm also very pleased to see that Japan and South Korea continue to engage one another with respective visits. This (is) a very important alliance on a bilateral basis between those countries ... how critical it is," he said.

"I know that it's a relationship that's been tested in recent times and in the past, but it's one that I think has grown stronger over the last three to four years, and we've certainly tried to foster it because these are two very close and important allies of ours."

Cho said that the SMR sector is one of many areas where the three countries can work together as they confront various shared challenges.

Motegi welcomed the MOU as a "significant achievement" for trilateral cooperation.