South Korea, China and Japan should "cherish" the opportunity to hold the first three-way talks among foreign ministers in three years, a senior Chinese diplomat has said, as the three major East Asian economies move to overcome mutual diplomatic tensions.
Senior diplomats from South Korea, China and Japan held their meeting in Seoul on Wednesday, during which they discussed the agenda of their foreign ministers' meeting later this month.
The upcoming foreign ministers' talks come after a nearly three-year hiatus and, if successful, will raise the prospects of a three-way summit among the three neighbors. The last trilateral summit was held in 2012.
Diplomatic tensions between China and Japan run deep because of competing claims over islands in the East China Sea. Relations between Seoul and Tokyo also remain frayed over Japan's unrepentant attitude on its wartime atrocities, including the sexual enslavement of women by the Japanese military during World War II.
"China attaches great importance to the (upcoming) foreign ministers' talks," Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin said in the Wednesday meeting in Seoul, according to his remarks posted on the Chinese foreign ministry's website on Thursday.
Liu said the decision to resume the three-way meeting of foreign ministers "has not come easily and we should cherish it dearly" and called for joint efforts to "ensure that trilateral cooperation can develop on the right track in a healthy and stable manner."
Speaking at a regular press briefing on Thursday, China's foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei sidestepped a question on whether the leaders of South Korea, China and Japan would hold a three-way summit, replying, "As for the leaders' meeting that you mentioned, I have no more to offer to you."
Previously, the Chinese foreign ministry called on Japan to create a "favorable environment" to realize such a summit.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have not held a bilateral summit since they took office in early 2013. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Abe briefly met in Beijing last November on the sidelines of the APEC gathering, but bilateral ties remain frosty. (Yonhap)
