SEOUL, Mar 21: The foreign ministers of South Korea, Japan and China today hold their first meeting in three years, in a bid to warm frosty ties and restore a regular three-way summit of their leaders, stalled because of tensions over history and territory. The top diplomats also held bilateral meetings to discuss whether South Korea and Japan will join a China-led development bank and the potential deployment of a US air defense system to counter North Korea’s missile threat. The meetings take place against the backdrop of South Korea and China’s cool ties with Japan over what they see as its reluctance to properly atone for its wartime past. Both also have territorial disputes with Tokyo over islands. The ministerial meeting will be a stepping stone for Asian neighbours’ leaders to restore what had been an annual summit to discuss cooperation, South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said this week.
‘Efforts are necessary to create the conditions for the summit meeting to be realised,’ Yun told South Korean media. The summit, on hold since May 2012, had been an annual fixture from 2008.
Arriving for a meeting with Yun, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said he would discuss all the issues of interest to Beijing, signalling the subjects of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the THAAD missile defense system were not off the table.
(AGENCIES)
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