Japan, China, S. Korea Foreign Chiefs to Meet on Saturday

Tokyo, March 17 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said Tuesday that he will hold a meeting with his Chinese and South Korean counterparts in Seoul on Saturday. The focus will be whether Kishida, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se will be able to pave the way for a tripartite summit. The three countries have been unable to hold a meeting of their top leaders for nearly three years due to soured ties between Japan and the two neighbors over history and other issues. The last three-way summit took place in May 2012, when then Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, then Chinese President Hu Jintao and then South Korean President Lee Myung-bak met in Beijing. At a press conference here Tuesday, Kishida said that it is important for the three countries to realize foreign ministers' meetings and summit talks in order to "develop future-oriented relationships." The coming trilateral meeting of foreign ministers will be the first since the one held in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, eastern China, in April 2012. Kishida, Wang and Yun are expected to reaffirm cooperation in nuclear energy safety and disaster mitigation, on top of exploring the possibility of arranging an early three-way summit, informed sources said. They are also likely to discuss issues related to North Korea and antiterrorism measures. During his three-day stay in Seoul through Sunday, Kishida is also slated to hold bilateral meetings with Yun and Wang. Kishida and Yun are expected to discuss the issue of so-called comfort women, mainly Koreans, who were forced to serve as prostitute for Japanese troops before and during World War II, and the indictment in South Korea of a former Seoul bureau chief of the major Japanese daily Sankei Shimbun over his alleged defamation of South Korean President Park Geun-hye, the sources said. The two ministers may also try to set up the first bilateral meeting between Park and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the sources said. Abe held a bilateral summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in November last year, which was the first meeting between the top leaders of Japan and China in about three years. Still, Sino-Japanese relations remain strained due to history issues and over the Japanese-administered Senkaku islands in the East China Sea, also claimed by Beijing. END