Agreement Reached on Annual Tripartite Foreign Affairs Meeting

South Korea, China and Japan are planning to discuss issues including the North Korean nuclear problem through a regular tripartite ministerial meeting of their Foreign Service offices once a year, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi announced on Sunday.

She said that Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing had agreed to her proposal about a regular tripartite ministerial meeting of the Foreign Service during her two-day visit in China from Saturday to Sunday.

Reportedly, the Foreign Ministers of three countries would have a regular meeting once a year aside from international conferences, and they have been deliberating on the specific schedule and location of the first meeting.

“I invited Chinese Premier Wen Ja Bao to Japan but he refused it, saying he would like to visit Japan when the situation was more comfortable,” she added. His words implied that neither a Chinese state head nor a Japanese state head would pay visits to its counterpart as long as Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi`s continues to make his pilgrimage to the Yasukuni Shrine.

Won-Jae Park parkwj@donga.com