Foreign ministers start meeting

UN Command condemns N. Korea mine-laying on border

TOKYO, Aug 23, (AFP): Foreign ministers from Japan, China and South Korea began a two-day meeting on Tuesday with their countries at odds over territorial disputes, a US missile defence system and perennial regional problem North Korea.

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, China’s Wang Yi and South Korea’s Yun Byung-Se met for dinner at a Tokyo hotel before the start of formal talks on Wednesday.

The three shook hands and smiled for the cameras without making any remarks.

The talks are the first since March last year and come ahead of a Group of 20 summit in China early next month.

“It is extremely important for the foreign ministers of the three countries that play major roles in the region to gather together and exchange opinions frankly,” Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters earlier.

Sino-Japanese tensions over a territorial dispute have risen this month, while China and South Korea have sparred over the planned deployment in the latter country of a US anti-missile system.

The Tokyo-Seoul relationship is also prone to periodic tension due to the legacy of Japan’s harsh colonisation of the Korean peninsula from 1910-45.

Japan and China are locked in a long-running dispute over uninhabited islets in the East China Sea called the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.

Tokyo has lodged more than two dozen protests through diplomatic channels since Aug 5, saying there have been about 30 intrusions by Chinese vessels into its territorial waters.

“We will deliver Japan’s thinking directly and clearly,” a foreign ministry official said regarding the dispute with China. “It is important for us to send our message firmly.”

The visit is the first by a Chinese foreign minister to Japan since Xi Jinping became president in March 2013.

Separately, China has complained about the planned deployment of the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea, arguing the missile shield damages its own security interests and will heighten regional tension.

South Korea, wary of offending China, had wavered about the installation but went ahead in the face of North Korea’s continued missile development.

North Korea is likely to be a key topic at the meeting, though finding common ground will be difficult.

Japan and South Korea regularly condemn Pyongyang for its nuclear and missile development, and feel frustrated by what they see as a lack of pressure on the country by the North’s economic lifeline China.

Bilateral meetings between Kishida and his Chinese and South Korean counterparts are also scheduled.

The three-way meeting is expected to be followed later this year by a summit. The leaders met in November last year in South Korea.

“I strongly hope that the meeting will create big momentum” for a successful summit, said Japan’s Suga.

North Korea has been laying fresh landmines on its side of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) with South Korea, the UN Command said Tuesday, following a spate of high-profile defections.

Military personnel were seen planting mines on the North’s side of a river crossing known as the Bridge of No Return — close to the border truce village of Panmunjom, a spokesman for the UN Command, which oversees the Korean War armistice, told AFP.

In a statement the UN Command “strongly” condemned the Korean People’s Army (KPA) activity.

“The presence of any device or munition on or near the bridge seriously jeopardises the safety of people on both sides,” it said.

The statement added that thousands of visitors — often school-aged children — take part in tours to the DMZ.

Despite its name, the DMZ separating the two Koreas is one of the world’s most heavily militarised frontiers, bristling with watchtowers and landmines.

It acts as a buffer zone, stretching two kilometres on either side of the actual frontier line.

Because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice rather than a formal peace treaty, the two Koreas remain technically at war.

The UN Command declined to “speculate” on why the KPA was engaged in laying fresh mines. But South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency cited a military source as saying it may be an attempt to prevent front-line troops from defecting.

Cross-border Korean tensions are currently running high, with North Korea on Monday threatening nuclear strikes as South Korea and the United States began a large-scale military exercise which Pyongyang views as a provocative rehearsal for invasion.

The North has also been rocked by a series of defections, most recently that of its deputy ambassador to Britain who fled to the South in a major propaganda victory for Seoul.