Senior foreign ministry officials of South Korea, China and Japan will hold a meeting in Tokyo over the weekend to prepare for a foreign ministers' gathering, Yonhap reported on Friday.

Kim Hyoung-zhin, deputy foreign ministry of South Korea, will meet Liu Zhenmin and Takeo Akiba, his Chinese and Japanese counterparts, on Sunday, according to the foreign ministry.

The high-ranking meeting will mark the 11th of its kind since it was first held in March 2007 as a major conversation channel of the three neighboring countries.

The meeting is aimed at making preparations for a gathering of the three country's foreign ministers.

Negotiations are under way for trilateral minister-level talks of the three, but speculation has spread that they have yet to set the date as territorial disputes between Beijing and Tokyo are deepening over islands in the East China Sea, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

A government source told Yonhap that China has expressed a wish to take part in the trilateral meeting but Tokyo has yet to clarify its position, apparently due to its people's displeasure with the ongoing territorial spat. This standoff may be holding back the final decision on the ministerial meeting timetable.

Source : MENA