South Korea plans to hold strategic talks with the United States, China and Japan within the next month to cope with rising security challenges facing Northeast Asia, government sources said Sunday.
The plan comes as China unilaterally drew a new air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea that overlaps similar lines draw by South Korea and Japan, as well as a move by Tokyo to seek an aggressive policy on its right to collective self-defense that could allow the country to project it forces beyond its borders.
Official insiders said Seoul is in consultation with neighboring countries to work out dates for senior-level talks aimed at diffusing tensions.
They said talks between Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kyou-hyun, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Zhang Yesui, executive vice minister of foreign affairs are being sought.
"Efforts are being made to arrange talks as soon as possible, with the meeting likely to take place within the year," said an official, who declined to be identified.
He added that strategic talks are planned with senior Japanese officials, which will be the first talks between senior foreign ministry officials since President Park Geun-hye took office in late February.
Kim's counterpart in any talks will likely be Vice Minister Akitaka Saiki, with Seoul making a point of insisting that any expansion of Tokyo's policy on its right to collective defense must not compromise South Korea's national security.
South Korea still harbors mistrust over Japan's foreign policy ambitions, a legacy of Japan's colonization of the Korean Peninsula in the early half of the 20th century.
In addition to this meeting, Seoul may be striving to hold a "two-plus-two meeting" between general manager officials from the two countries' foreign and defense ministries to discuss outstanding issues.
All the meetings being pursued could help Seoul advance its national interests, while at the same time seek ways to ease tensions in the region.
In particular, South Korea plans to ask China again to redraw its ADIZ. If this fails, it plans to inform Beijing that it too will expand its air identification zone, which currently does not cover the Ieodo Ocean Research Station, 149 kilometers southwest of Mara Island off Jeju.
South Korea, moreover, will bring up the ADIZ topic in talks with the United States, which has also opposed China's move.
"The goal is for Seoul to take a firm stance and move to protect its interests through constructive dialogue with other countries," another senior government source said.
Related to discussion with the United States on the air identification zone, several diplomatic sources have said Washington had been open to the idea of extending South Korea's ADIZ throughout the 1960s, but it took a "non-committal" stance after Tokyo drew is new line in Sept. 1969.
At the time, Seoul had asked for a redrawing so its ADIZ would coincide with the "flight information region" it supervises, which had been set by the International Civil Aviation Organization.
"South Korea sent five requests for an extension from 1963 through 1979," an insider said, adding that the logic behind the request was to respond quickly to any air threats near Jeju Island.
The position of the U.S., on the other hand, for over four decades has been to get Seoul and Tokyo to work out the problem by themselves.
Others said that the matter was touched on at a bilateral security consultation meeting in 1999, but no headway was made because the Japanese side declined to approach the subject. (Yonhap News)
