WASHINGTON — The top diplomats of 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. 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 Korean, U.S. and Japanese firms to p