Japan, China to hold working-level talks
(Reutes)
Updated: 2006-05-02 09:17
Japan and China will soon hold working-level talks in an attempt to improve
troubled relations between the Asian neighbors, a news report said Monday.
Japanese Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi delivers his policy speech for African
countries at the African Union (AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa May 1,
2006. [Reuters] | Undersecretary for Foreign
Affairs Shotaro Yachi will hold three days of talks from Sunday with Chinese
Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo in Beijing and Guiyang in southwest China,
Kyodo News agency reported, citing Yachi.
Yachi will call on the Chinese to resume contact between the countries' top
leaders, which Beijing cut off to protest Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi's latest visit to a war shrine with links to Japanese militarism, Kyodo
said.
Foreign ministry officials were unavailable to confirm the report late
Monday.
Ties between Japan and China have become their most strained in decades due
to Koizumi's visits, squabbles over history textbooks and territorial issues.
Earlier reports have said Japanese officials hope to arrange talks between
Foreign Minister Taro Aso and his Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing during the May
23-24 Asia Cooperation Dialogue, a 26-member forum aimed at promoting economic
cooperation in Asia, to be held in Doha, Qatar.
If the meeting does materialize, it will be the first between the two
countries' foreign ministers since May, 2005, when they met on the sidelines of
the Asia-Europe Meeting in Kyoto, western Japan.
|