Korea, China, Japan to resume three-way free trade talks this week

BEIJING, Aug. 25 (Yonhap) -- South Korea, China and Japan will hold a new round of three-way free trade talks later this week in Beijing, a Seoul diplomat said Monday, despite frayed diplomatic relations between Japan and the two Asian neighbors over their shared history. The three Asian nations launched formal negotiations in November 2012 to forge a trilateral free trade deal that would create one of the world's biggest economic blocs, but there has been little headway in the previous four rounds of negotiations. The fifth round of talks will start Saturday in Beijing for a week, the diplomat at the South Korean Embassy in Beijing said on the condition of anonymity, without elaborating further. During the fourth round held in March in Seoul, the three nations even failed to agree on the broader "modalities" of how to eliminate tariffs and which items should be excluded from a deal, according to Seoul officials. South Korea, China and Japan, which are major trading partners each other, account for about 20 percent of global gross domestic product. Diplomatic tensions between China and Japan run deep because of completing claims over islands in the East China Sea. Relations between Seoul and Tokyo also remain frayed over Japan's unrepentant attitude over its wartime atrocities, including the sexual enslavement of women by the Japanese military during World War II. kdh@yna.co.kr (END)