China, Japan and South Korea hold renewed talks

From left: South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, Japan’s Fumio Kishida, South Korea President Park Geun-hye and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met at the presidency in Seoul

The foreign ministers of China, Japan and South Korea are meeting for their first talks in three years.

The meeting in Seoul is likely to focus on ways to ease regional tensions over territorial and diplomatic disputes.

The three states have strong economic ties but relations still suffer from unresolved issues dating back to Japan’s actions in World War Two.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said he hoped the ministers would be able to “look forward into the future”.

South Korea’s Yun Byung-se welcomed Japan’s Fumio Kishida and China’s Wang Yi to South Korea’s capital on Saturday.

Foreign ministers from the three countries last met in April 2012, for their sixth annual trilateral meeting.

It was cancelled the following year after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe angered China and South Korea by visiting a shrine that honours Japan’s war dead, including a number of senior war criminals.

Japan colonised the Korean peninsula and occupied parts of China during World War Two and both countries have accused Tokyo of failing to adequately atone for its aggression.

Mr Kishida met his South Korean counterpart ahead of the trilateral meeting, and said that “despite difficult issues between the two countries”, the two sides would “continue communicating at various levels in order to strengthen our co-operation”.

US watching closely

The BBC’s Steve Evans in Seoul says differences do remain but the anger of three years ago has cooled, so the meeting is a tentative step back towards formal dialogue.

The resumption of the foreign ministers’ meeting has fuelled hopes that a summit of the counties’ three leaders could be held later this year.

BBC