Chinese and Japanese foreign ministers will meet on the sidelines of an ASEAN
meeting to discuss China-Japan relations and regional issues in Northeast Asia,
official sources said on Tuesday.
According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman's office, Chinese Foreign
Minister Li Zhaoxing will hold bilateral consultations with his Japanese
counterpart Taro Aso in Kuala Lumpur during the seventh foreign ministers'
meeting between the ASEAN and China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (10+3) from
July 26 to 28.
"They will discuss China-Japan relations and regional issues, including the
Northeast Asian situation," sources with the Foreign Ministry said.
Sino-Japanese relations have been soured by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi's repeated visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, where Japan's war dead,
including 14 class A criminals in WWII, are honored.
The leaders of the two countries halted exchange visits after Koizumi's
homage to the war shrine soon after he took office in 2001.
This will be Li's second meeting with Aso since Aso became Japan's foreign
minister last year.
Their first meeting was held in Qatar on the sidelines of the Asia
Cooperation Dialogue conference in May.
The meeting between Li and Aso is expected to take place on Thursday on the
sidelines of the ASEAN meeting, sources said.
The upcoming meeting was just decided by Monday, with the help of various
channels, sources said.
"The arrangement of the meeting spells out the message that China and Japan
hope to keep contacts and mend ties," Pang Zhongying, an international relations
expert, told Xinhua on Tuesday.
China and Japan have had a number of frequent wrangles beyond Japanese
leader's Yasukuni Shrine visits, including disputes over the East China Sea gas
and oil resources.
China and Japan held the sixth round of the East China Sea talks in Beijing
in early July, but great differences still remain.
The two countries also met for security talks last Friday, agreeing on
increased defense exchanges.
In an exclusive interview with Xinhua on Monday, the ASEAN Secretary-General
Ong Keng Yong said the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula would be a focal
point of the impending ASEAN foreign ministers meeting.
The ASEAN chief said ASEAN is committed to a peaceful Korean peninsula and
wish the six parties to come together to find a solution.
Almost all major players in the six-party talks on the Korean Peninsula have
confirmed their participation in the meetings in Kuala Lumpur.
"Diplomatic efforts are being made to hold foreign ministers' talks of the
six countries on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum(ARF)," said Chun
Young-Woo, Republic of Korea's top envoy to the six-party talks.
The six-party talks on the Korean nuclear issue remained stalled since the
last round of meeting was held in Beijing last November.
The last round of talks, involving China, the Democratic Republic of
Korea(DPRK), the United States, ROK, Russia and Japan, ended up with a
Chairman's Statement, in which the parties concerned agreed to resume the talks
as soon as possible.
"I think China is certainly showing evidence of that (becoming a responsible
stakeholder). I thought the North Korea (the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea) example was a good one," Rice said ahead of her departure for the ASEAN
meetings.
The ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
