Trilateral FM meeting likely to take place next month

By Kang Seung-woo

Foreign ministers of Korea, China and Japan are seeking to meet in March in Seoul for the first time in three years, a foreign ministry official said Friday.

The meeting is seen as a prelude to a potential trilateral summit that has also been stalled since May 2012 amid territorial and historical disputes.

The high-ranking official said Korea, China and Japan, "have agreed to hold a foreign ministers' meeting around late March."

He added: "The three nations are in coordination to set up the timing of the meeting."

Earlier in the day, Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun carried a similar report.

In November, President Park Geun-hye offered a three-way summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. She also suggested a meeting of foreign ministers to discuss preparations for the summit.

The trilateral meeting will bring Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and his counterparts Fumio Kishida of Japan and Wang Yi of China to the table.

Along with the summit, other topics will include North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, growing terrorism by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and cooperation related to economics and energy. Recently, two Japanese hostages were murdered by the Islamic terrorist group.

Such a three-way meeting has been suspended since April 2012 because of territorial rows between China and Japan over the Senkaku-Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea.

The issue of sexual enslavement of Koreans and other Asian women, conducted by Japan's Imperial Army before and during World War II, has fueled tensions between Japan and Korea as the Abe government has attempted to deny its wartime atrocities.

While Korea and China have become closer neighbors, relations between Korea and Japan have been sour in recent years.

Since her inauguration in February 2013, President Park has met with the Chinese President five times, but she has yet to meet with Abe, asking for Japan's sincere apology for the "comfort woman" issue. Abe took office in December 2012.