Seoul, Beijing, Tokyo to push for meeting among top diplomats

SEOUL — South Korea yesterday said it has agreed with China and Japan to push for a meeting among their top diplomats by year-end as the countries explored ways to repair ties marred by historical and territorial spats.

Diplomats from the three nations met in Seoul yesterday for the first high-level talks in 10 months and agreed to restore momentum for cooperation, the Foreign Ministry in Seoul said in an emailed statement. Its spokesman Noh Kwang-il said earlier at a briefing that his country would consult with China and Japan on reviving an annual three-way summit among their heads of state.

“It’s the right time for us to revitalise this cooperation, building trust and removing stumbling blocks,” South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se separately told deputy foreign ministers from China and Japan, Mr Liu Zhenmin and Mr Shinsuke Sugiyama, who were in Seoul for the talks.

The three countries, which together account for more than two-thirds of the Asia-Pacific economy, skipped their trilateral summit last year for the first time since 2008. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has not met Chinese President Xi Jinping since taking office in December 2012 as tensions between their countries deepened over the sovereignty of a group of uninhabited islets in the East China Sea. Mr Abe last year angered China and South Korea after he visited a Tokyo war shrine seen by China and South Korea as a symbol of Japan’s past aggression.

“We shared the view that there are some necessities for all of us to overcome some of the challenges all of us three have been faced with,” Mr Sugiyama told reporters after the meeting.

Mr Abe has been pushing for a meeting with Mr Xi at a regional economic forum in Beijing in November. He met South Korean President Park Geun-hye in March at a meeting organised by United States President Barack Obama at The Hague Nuclear Summit. Bloomberg