Asia-Pacific leaders voiced concern over the situation in the resource-rich South China Sea at a regional summit on Saturday, a Japanese government official said, as security tensions between the United States and China have shown no sign of easing.

The defense chiefs of Japan and the United States on Saturday confirmed that the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea fall under the scope of a security treaty between the two countries.

A Russian-brokered deal has silenced the guns in Nagorno-Karabakh, the region disputed for decades by Armenia and Azerbaijan. It falls short, however, of a clear, sustainable peace. The parties and foreign stakeholders should work to ensure that the new arrangements have benefits for all concerned.