Secretary Antony J. Blinken and Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly Before Their Meeting

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, I guess I'm the host, technically. (Laughter.)

FOREIGN MINISTER JOLY: Yeah, go ahead.

SECRETARY BLINKEN: So good afternoon, everyone. Look, one of the great benefits of get-togethers like APEC is the opportunity to spend time with my great colleague and good friend, Melanie Joly, and all of our Canadian colleagues. And no more important time because there is so much on our common agenda:

Haiti, where we're working together to do everything we can to support security for Haiti, Haiti's transition, including with the Multilateral Security Support mission and working to get others to also provide the necessary support.

As NATO Allies with many challenges facing our Alliance, including of course the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine and now the introduction of North Korean forces into that conflict zone.

The work that we're doing together to try to advance peace and stability across the Middle East, and so many other things.

So, as always, I'm grateful to spend time with you.

FOREIGN MINISTER JOLY: Thank you, Tony. I am extremely happy to see you, as always, and I would also like to add to what you've said. Of course, Canada values its relationship deeply with the United States. We've been able to work together on the Columbia River Treaty. Our goal is definitely to be able to finalize it and work with you because we need to make sure that we are able to have good support from Congress.

At the same time also we will be talking about geopolitical issues that you mentioned - definitely the support to Ukrainians fighting for their freedom but also for ours, and working also to make sure that we have our colleagues from around the world also supporting the UN Charter. Of course we're very concerned about the involvement of North Korea in Ukraine, which is an important escalation of the conflict. And of course, yes, we will work on bringing back peace and stability to - to the Middle East, so thank you so much. Merci beaucoup.

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thanks, everyone.

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