3 leaders to visit Fukushima city to encourage evacuees

TOKYO, May 18 Kyodo - The leaders of Japan, China and South Korea will visit the city of Fukushima on Saturday afternoon to encourage those who have been affected by the March earthquake and subsequent nuclear emergency at an athletic park there, sources close to the issue said Wednesday.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and South Korean President Lee Myung Bak are scheduled to visit Japan during the coming weekend to hold a trilateral summit with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan.
The Chinese and South Korean leaders ''will be paying visits to the disaster-hit areas,'' Kan told a news conference, without elaborating where exactly they are headed to.
China and South Korea respectively announced that Premier Wen Jiabao and President Lee Myung Bak will visit Fukushima Prefecture and Sendai in Miyagi Prefecture, two of the areas hit hard by the powerful March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
In line with Kan's strong wish, Japan had initially planned to hold the opening ceremony for their trilateral summit in the city of Fukushima, around 60 kilometers northwest of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, but it is unlikely to happen due to difficulty in securing a venue.
Kan was keen for Wen and Lee to visit the northeastern Japanese city as a way to demonstrate the place is safe and to quell rumors about radioactive contamination from the Fukushima plant, after its critical cooling system was crippled.
The three nations have agreed on key schedules such as a dinner Saturday and trilateral talks Sunday. Wen and Lee are slated to arrive in Japan on Saturday morning.
The summit will be the fourth of its kind since the inaugural trilateral leaders' meeting in Fukuoka Prefecture in 2008. The three countries have since taken turns as host.