Japan, South Korea and China vowed Wednesday to try to restore stagnant trilateral cooperation as they prepare for a meeting of their foreign ministers slated for late March, the Seoul-based Yonhap News Agency reported. South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Lee Kyung-soo met Chinese and Japanese counterparts, Liu Zhenmin and Shinsuke Sugiyama, respectively, in Seoul amid historical tension in the region. The three-way, ministerial-level meeting, the first since September, is a preparatory step toward holding upcoming talks of their foreign ministers that may take place on March 21 and 22 in Seoul, the first in three years. The senior officials discussed various cooperative projects such as nuclear safety, disaster relief and cyberspace security, according to the report. Lee said that the Wednesday talks had a "clear and firm purpose" with which the three nations can prepare for the meeting of the top diplomats, adding that they are moving in a direction toward the restoration of the three-way cooperation.
"If the trilateral foreign ministers' meeting is held soon, it will undoubtedly give us the opportunity to re-establish the groundwork for trust-building and common prosperity, by injecting momentum to trilateral cooperation and revitalizing various consultative mechanisms and projects among the three countries," Lee was quoted as saying at the start of the meeting. The move to hold a foreign ministers' meeting is aimed at rekindling the momentum for trilateral cooperation at a time when South Korea's and China's bilateral relations with Japan remain strained due to history and territory rows. Seoul has slammed Japan for refusing to face up to its wartime atrocities, such as its sexual enslavement of Korean and other Asian women during World War II. China and Japan have been sparring over a territorial dispute involving islands in the East China Sea, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.
A trilateral meeting of foreign ministers has not been held since April 2012 due to such strained relations, while a three-way summit has also not been held since May 2012 amid long-standing historical grievances. The senior diplomats stressed the importance of reviving trilateral cooperation at a time when they face a set of challenges in the region. "This progress has not come easily and should be cherished," Liu said, referring to the move to hold the foreign ministers' talks. "We must not be satisfied with where we are. We must show the shared commitment of the three countries at an even higher level, so that we can attain what we may call the full normalization of the trilateral cooperation mechanism," Lee said. Sugiyama echoed such a view by saying that the foreign ministers' meeting could "hopefully be followed further by a meeting of "the highest level" of the three countries.