S Korea, Japan, China FMs to meet in Tokyo

SEOUL

Japanese Foreign Minister Iwaya Takeshi attends the G7 foreign ministers meeting in La Malbaie, Canada, Friday March 14, 2025.

The top diplomats for China, South Korea and Japan will meet in Tokyo this weekend for talks, Seoul said on Tuesday, as the neighbors move to bolster regional ties.

South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul and his Japanese and Chinese counterparts, Iwaya Takeshi and Wang Yi, will "exchange comprehensive views... for the development of trilateral cooperation," Seoul's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The meeting in Tokyo on March 22 will be the 11th trilateral ministerial meeting, the statement said, with the last such meeting held in November 2023 in the South Korean port city of Busan.

The countries will also hold bilateral talks on the sidelines of the three way summit, Seoul added.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK said the meeting was "expected to discuss concrete cooperation in a wide range of areas, such as people-to-people exchanges, economic cooperation and measures to combat the falling birthrate."

The top diplomats were also set "to agree to coordinate the holding of a summit meeting of the three countries by the end of the year."

NHK said Tokyo also aims to resolve some outstanding bilateral issues " such as China's measures to suspend imports of Japanese fisheries products."

In May last year, the leaders of the three countries held a rare summit in Seoul, the first such high level talks in five years, at which they agreed to deepen trade ties.

The three countries also reaffirmed their commitment to the "denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," a reference to nuclear-armed North Korea.