China, Japan, South Korea agree to step up preparations for trilateral leaders' summit

By Anadolu staff

ANKARA (AA) – The three regional heavyweights, China, Japan, and South Korea, agreed on Sunday to expedite preparations to resume the long-stalled summit of the three countries' leaders at the "earliest, mutually convenient" time.

South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin told reporters after meeting with his Chinese and Japanese counterparts, Wang Yi and Yoko Kamikawa, respectively, in the southeastern port city of Busan, that the three sides firmly agreed to hold the summit, the pinnacle of the trilateral cooperation system, at the earliest mutually convenient time and agreed to accelerate preparations for the huddle.

It was the first such meeting after a four-year hiatus, according to Seoul-based Yonhap News Agency.

The trilateral summit was last held in China in Dec. 2019, and it has not been held since due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a rift in Seoul-Tokyo relations over the issue of compensating Korean victims of forced labor during Japan's colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

"We will continue efforts to make sure that the holding of a summit will materialize in the near future," Park was quoted as saying by the news agency.

He said the three countries had agreed in the meeting to "restore and normalize" trilateral cooperation.

Park also said in response to North Korea's launch of a military spy satellite this week that such "provocations, along with ballistic missile launches, pose serious threats to peace and stability in the region," according to the news agency.

The three sides agreed to continue communications at all levels to help resolve North Korean issues, he said.

Park cited his Chines counterpart Wang to emphasize that despite the global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, three-way cooperation "has never been stopped" and that there is "huge potential, strong demand, and a wide range of resources."

"China, Korea, and Japan must play a positive role in regional and global development with a more honest attitude," he added.

Kamikawa called for trilateral cooperation not only for "peace and prosperity," but also to meet many "unprecedented" challenges such as climate change and artificial intelligence.

"Whether we can provide resilience with the power to overcome these challenges depends on how we can collaborate with ideas that are not tied to existing methods," he said.