SINGAPORE -- Seoul’s Minister of National Defense Shin Won-sik said Friday a delegation of US senators agreed to help raise bipartisan support on expanding the two countries’ cooperation in defense-related science and technology.

The minister and the three US senators -- Sens. Tammy Duckworth, Laphonza Butler and Dan Sullivan -- held a closed-door meeting held at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore for about half an hour.

“The bipartisan US senate delegation, one Republican and two Democrats, and I shared the sentiment on the importance of strengthening the alliance of the ROK and the US and the strategic value of South Korea in the region,” the minister told reporters.

“We also discussed the issues of cooperation in defense science and technology. I asked for bipartisan support from the US Congress, and the senators responded favorably.”

Sen. Tammy Duckworth told The Korea Herald following the meeting with the minister that the delegation spoke about South Korea’s growing role in terms of security in the Indo-Pacific region.

“South Korea has become a pivotal nation when it comes to security in this region. It is more than the partnership, the alliance between Korea and the US or even that between Korea, the US and Japan,” she said.

She said South Korea “has a role to play as a leader in the entire Indo-Pacific region to ... really step forward and take the lead.”

Duckworth added that the delegation also spoke to the minister about growing defense manufacturing capacity.

“Korea has an opportunity to participate in that to help repair our manufacturing supply chain and that will be good because not only will it bring jobs to Korea but it will also fulfill a need for our logistics,” she said.

Butler told The Korea Herald that the partnerships between South Korea and the US, as well as those between other countries such as Japan, Singapore and the Philippines, were “the best deterrent against ... actors of aggression, authoritarianism across the region.”

“The strength of ROK-US partnership, the focus of the leadership of Korea in the region are an incredibly important point of pride that people of Korea should have. It is the message that we will take back to Washington,” she said.