(LEAD) Lee returns home after high-stakes summits with Trump, Ishiba

SEOUL, Aug. 28 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Jae Myung returned home Thursday after a six-day trip to the United States and Japan for high-stakes summit talks with U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

Lee held his first in-person meeting with Trump in Washington on Monday during which they converged on the need to resume diplomacy with North Korea while pledging to work together to revitalize America's shipbuilding industry -- a sector that the Trump administration is keen to shore up amid its intensifying rivalry with China.

Lee voiced support for Trump's pursuit of dialogue with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, urging him to play a role as a "peacemaker" on the divided Korean Peninsula while pledging to play his own part as a "pacemaker" in a convincing tone.

Still, sensitive issues, including "alliance modernization" between Seoul and Washington and trade in the rice and beef markets, were not publicly discussed.

Ahead of his visit to Washington, Lee stopped in Tokyo to hold his first full summit with Ishiba and discussed ways to advance bilateral ties through "shuttle diplomacy" and issued the first Seoul-Tokyo joint summit statement in 17 years.

National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac said Lee built personal rapport with the leaders in the back-to-back summits, which laid the groundwork for closer ties with Tokyo and advancing trilateral cooperation with Washington.

ejkim@yna.co.kr
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