Kishida May Meet with China, S. Korea Foreign Chiefs in Early Aug.

Tokyo, July 21 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida is considering holding separate meetings with his Chinese and South Korean counterparts, Wang Yi and Yun Byung-se, in Kuala Lumpur early next month on the fringe of foreign ministers' gatherings related to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, it was learned Tuesday. At the bilateral meetings, Kishida would seek the two neighboring countries' understanding for a statement Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans to release in August to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and lay the groundwork for arranging Abe's bilateral summits with Chinese President Xi Jinping and South Korean President Park Geun-hye within this year, sources familiar with the matter said. Kishida is hoping to visit the Malaysian capital on Aug. 5-6 to attend a series of ASEAN-linked meetings, including one for the ASEAN Regional Forum, a security dialogue framework among foreign ministers of the 10 ASEAN countries and other nations including Japan, China and South Korea. He will make a decision on whether to visit Kuala Lumpur while taking into account the schedule for deliberations on a set of government-sponsored national security bills at the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of Japan's Diet, the sources said. The bills cleared the House of Representatives last week. China and South Korea are paying close attention to Abe's war-end anniversary statement. Kishida is expected to convey to Wang and Yun the prime minister's stance of taking over past Japanese cabinets' views of history as a whole, the sources said. Kishida will explore the possibility of setting up an Abe-Xi summit during the Japanese leader's possible visit to China in September and an Abe-Park meeting on the sidelines of a summit among the three Asian countries, which they are now trying to arrange for autumn in Seoul, the sources said. Abe and Xi have had bilateral meetings twice, in Beijing in November 2014 and in Jakarta in April this year, since they took office in December 2012 and March 2013, respectively, as Japan-China relations have shown signs of improvement. But Abe and Park have still been unable to have a one-on-one meeting, with ties between Tokyo and Seoul remaining frosty over history and territorial issues. Noting that North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong could also attend the ARF meeting, the sources said that Kishida is hoping to meet with him for talks on Pyongyang's reinvestigation of Japanese nationals abducted to the reclusive country decades ago. Kishida and Ri held an informal meeting in Naypyitaw, the capital of Myanmar, in August 2014 on the margin of last year's ARF session. END