China,S.Korea leaders have rare chat with Koizumi
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-09-11 06:49
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Sunday chatted with leaders of
China and South Korea, who have refused one-on-one meetings with him because of
his visits to a war shrine seen as a symbol of Japan's militaristic past.
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China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao (L) and Japan's Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi wait for the start of the Asian Leaders' Meeting at the
ASEM meet in Helsinki, Finland September 2006.
[Reuters]
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The rare encounters took place as leaders of 13 Asian countries mingled on
the sidelines of a two-day Asia-Europe summit that opened in the Finnish capital
on Sunday.
Koizumi exchanged "simple greetings" with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, a
Japanese Foreign Ministry official said.
The Japanese prime minister also greeted South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun
and alluded to ongoing bilateral discussions about a dispute over desolate
islands claimed by both Tokyo and Seoul, the official said.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman had no immediate comment on Wen's
encounter with Koizumi. A South Korean official described the exchange between
Roh and the Japanese leader as "perfunctory".
The Chinese and South Korean leaders have refused to hold bilateral meetings
with Koizumi, angered by his annual homages at Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, which
honours wartime criminals alongside 2.5 million war dead.
Visits by Japanese leaders to the shrine stir bitter memories in China of
Japan's 1931-1945 invasion and occupation of large parts of the country while
resentment still lingers in South Korea over Japan's often-brutal domination of
the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
Last month, China accused Koizumi of "wrecking the political foundations of
China-Japan relations" when he visited the shrine on the anniversary of Tokyo's
World War Two surrender.
Koizumi has said he goes to the shrine to pray for peace.
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