N. Korea's nuclear on table at 3-way summit among S. Korea, China, Japan

BEIJING, Oct. 26 (Yonhap) -- The leaders of South Korea, China and Japan will discuss North Korea's nuclear weapons ambition over the weekend when they hold a three-way summit in Seoul, a Chinese vice foreign minister said Monday, their first trilateral meeting in over three years. South Korean President Park Geun-hye will host Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in a gathering intended to soften strained relations among the three nations. Li will arrive in Seoul on Saturday for a three-day visit and hold a bilateral meeting with Park ahead of the three-way summit, both South Korean and Chinese officials said. Asked whether North Korea's nuclear weapons program will be one of the agenda items for the upcoming summit among Park, Li and Abe, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin replied, "I think that China and South Korea will exchange views on the situation of the Korean Peninsula because upholding peace and stability on the peninsula and promoting denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula are not the goal of China alone." "It is actually the goal of all six countries and enshrined in the Sept. 19 Joint Statement issued in 2005. So, there will obviously discuss about the issue," Liu said, referring to the 2005 agreement in which North Korea agreed to abandon its nuclear programs in exchange for aid and security assurances. The agreement was made during the six-party talks involving South Korea, North Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Japan. North Korea walked out of the six-party process, which has been stalled since late 2008, and has conducted three nuclear tests so far, without demonstrating a genuine willingness toward denuclearization. Asked about a media report that the leaders among South Korea, China and Japan will issue a joint statement on North Korea's nuclear weapons program after the trilateral summit, Liu said, "I have not heard about it." South Korea, China and Japan last held a trilateral summit in 2012. The annual event has been stalled since then, mainly due to a then-simmering territorial dispute between China and Japan, as well as Japan's lack of apologies over its atrocities during World War II. "China, Japan and South Korea are major economies and important countries of the region," China's foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters, announcing Li's visit to South Korea. "Trilateral cooperation, as an important component of East Asian cooperation and a driving force of regional cooperation, has delivered tangible benefits to the people of the three countries," Hua said. "In recent years, due to reasons known to all, such cooperation met obstacles." "After three years of suspension, the Chinese side hopes that the three parties can take this meeting as an opportunity to reflect upon and summarize the past; find direction for future cooperation; enhance our cooperation in traditional fields like trade, culture and sustainable development; and expand cooperation in new, emerging sectors like creative economy and information technology," Hua said. South Korea has offered Nov. 2 as the date of a bilateral summit between Park and Abe, according to Seoul officials. During her visit to the United States earlier this month, Park said she was open to a bilateral summit with Abe on the sidelines of the upcoming three-way summit with China. Park and Abe have not held a one-on-one meeting since they took office about three years ago and one of the big obstacles is Abe's lack of apology for the sexual enslavement of Korean women by the Japanese military during World War II. While Park said she was open to holding a bilateral summit with Abe, she stressed that Japan must make progress in its efforts to resolve a long-standing grievance regarding the former sex slaves. Historians estimate that more than 200,000 women, mostly Koreans, were coerced into sexual servitude at front-line Japanese brothels during the war. From 1910 to 1945, the Korean Peninsula was a Japanese colony. kdh@yna.co.kr (END)