The leaders of Japan, China and South Korea will hold a two-day summit in Tokyo from May 21 to discuss nuclear safety, disaster preparedness and other issues, Japan's government said Friday.
Japan's centre-left Prime Minister Naoto Kan will meet Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak in the annual three-way meeting, Japan's top government spokesman Yukio Edano told reporters.
"The summit aims to boost cooperation and dialogue in various fields between the leaders of the three countries that have a big responsibility for the stability and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region," Edano said.
"During the upcoming summit, they will also discuss ways to strengthen cooperation in disaster prevention and nuclear safety in the wake of the Great East Japan Disaster," he said at a press conference.
The Northeast Asian three-way meetings on regional and global issues started in their current format in 2008. South Korea hosted the meeting last year.
This year's talks will come more than two months after the massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami brought Japan's worst post-war disaster and triggered an ongoing nuclear emergency that has sparked global concern.
Beijing and Seoul have sent quake rescue teams and offered other support to Japan, a country with which both have at times had testy relations because of their colonial and wartime history and ongoing territorial disputes.
Both China and South Korea have voiced concern after Japan dumped 10,000 tonnes of low-level radioactive runoff water into the Pacific Ocean as part of emergency operations at its tsunami-crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.
Last month, Japan's new Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto held talks with his Chinese and South Korean counterparts in Kyoto, western Japan, and briefed them on how Tokyo was handling the aftermath of the disaster.
The trio also voiced concern over North Korea's uranium enrichment programme and started to lay the groundwork for the three-way summit.
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