Korea, China, Japan to hold talks this week to discuss three-way summit


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Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin, center, attends the ASEAN Plus Three foreign ministers' meeting in Jakarta along with his Chinese and Japanese counterparts, Wang Yi, left, and Yoshimasa Hayashi, respectively, July 13. Yonhap

 

Korea, China and Japan are set to hold a series of meetings in Seoul on Monday to discuss resuming the long-stalled summit of their leaders.

The deputy director-general meetings come a day before high-level talks among Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Chung Byung-won, Takehiro Funakoshi, Japan's senior deputy foreign minister, and Nong Rong, China's assistant minister of foreign affairs.

Ahead of the three-way talks, Chung is set to hold separate bilateral talks with his Japanese and Chinese counterparts late Monday, according to sources, amid a push to resume a possible trilateral summit.

Three-way summits among the three neighbors ― first held in December 2008 ― have been suspended since 2019 following a dispute between Korea and Japan over forced labor compensation rulings and the pandemic.

Talks on the need to revive tripartite summit diplomacy have surfaced following a thaw in the frozen ties between Seoul and Tokyo since the launch of the current Korean administration of President Yoon Suk Yeol in May of last year. (Yonhap)