South Korean President Park Geun-hye has suggested there are uncertainties over a potential summit with Chinese and Japanese leaders.
Park voiced hope for a meeting with Chinese and Japanese leaders during last week's summit between Southeast Asian countries and their three Northeast Asian dialogue partners -- South Korea, China and Japan -- in Myanmar.
"I made the offer because I thought that conditions had improved this year compared to last year. Still, there remains a foreign ministers' meeting so it remains to be seen how things will play out," Park said in a rare press gaggle aboard Air Force One on the way back to Seoul.
Park arrived in Seoul earlier in the day after concluding a set of multilateral summits on the global economy and security in a trip that took her to China, Myanmar and Australia.
Park said last week that a potential trilateral summit could come following the meeting of their foreign ministers in the near future.
She met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for the first time in eight months in Beijing on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
The Asian powers have not held a regular trilateral summit since May 2012 due to tensions between South Korea and Japan and between China and Japan over territorial and other history-related issues.
Ju Chul-ki, senior presidential foreign affairs secretary, said last week that a summit might be held if the countries successfully conclude their foreign ministers' meeting and conditions mature.
Still, it remains unclear whether South Korea and Japan can make any progress in addressing the issue of elderly Korean women who were forced to serve as sex slaves for Japan's World War II soldiers.
Korean sex slaves, commonly called "comfort women," have been one of the most knotty issues between South Korea and Japan for decades.
Also Monday, Prime Minister Chung Hong-won said South Korea and Japan should build future-oriented cooperative ties based on a correct recognition of history, but Japan has yet to demonstrate its sincerity over its past history, including the sex slaves.
Seoul-Tokyo relations have plunged into one of their lowest levels in recent years largely because of their shared history.
Japan ruled the Korean Peninsula as a colony from 1910 to 1945.
Park's trip also produced two separate free trade agreements for South Korea with China and New Zealand to boost trade and economic cooperation.
Still, Seoul and Beijing need to go through technical consultations in the coming weeks to work out the wording of the deal and hold a legal review before formally signing a deal on the free trade agreement early next year.
Park also called on the parliament to quickly ratify the free trade agreements. (Yonhap)
