South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun travelled to the Philippines on Tuesday for a series of ASEAN-related diplomatic meetings, seeking to strengthen Seoul's ties with Southeast Asian partners across areas including artificial intelligence, energy security, and efforts to counter online scam networks. Cho co-chaired a Korea-ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting with Thailand and held trilateral talks with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, focusing on North Korea and three-way security cooperation. A key priority for Seoul was the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) — the only regional security body that includes North Korea — which South Korea used to press Pyongyang to return to dialogue, though officials indicated the North may again skip the gathering as it did last year.