President Moon Jae-in will make a one-day visit to Japan next Wednesday to attend the South Korea-Japan-China trilateral summit,... the first such meeting between the neighboring countries in more than two years.
The South Korean leader will also take the opportunity to sit down with the Japanese Prime Minister for a one-on-one.
Our chief Blue House correspondent Moon Connyoung has more on the attempts to strengthen ties between the three sides. South Korea's President Moon Jae-in will visit Tokyo next week for a three-way summit with prime ministers of Japan and China... and on the agenda there will also be North Korea's denuclearization and peace settlement on the Korean Peninsula.
"President Moon Jae-in will make a one-day visit to Japan to attend the 7th South Korea, Japan, China trilateral summit on the 9th of May. It will mark the first visit to Japan by a sitting South Korean president since 2011."
The trilateral meeting on Wednesday will be the first of its kind since 2015 and comes after a historic inter-Korean summit last Friday... in which the leaders of the two Koreas reaffirmed their commitment on declaring the end of the Korean War by the year's end and dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear program.
"At the trilateral summit, President Moon will brief the other two leaders on the results of the recent inter-Korean summit and discuss ways to strengthen the three countries' cooperation on denuclearization and lasting peace settlement on the Korean Peninsula."
The meeting also comes ahead of the highly-anticipated summit between North Korean leader Kim
Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump... expected to take place in three to four weeks.
President Moon and Japanese Prime Minister Abe will hold separate talks after their trilateral
meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.
"Following the trilateral meeting, President Moon and Japanese Prime Minister Abe will hold a separate bilateral summit and a luncheon meeting to exchange ideas on ways to build a future-oriented South Korea, Japan relationship and cooperation for complete denuclearization and lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula."
"The trilateral summit in Tokyo next week will serve as a key venue for Japan and China to become up to date on the latest wave of diplomatic developments between South and North Korea from the inter-Korean summit. Will it be enough to quell the two countries' fear of being sidelined in this entire process: the quick warm up of inter-Korean ties and possible denuclearization? That we'll find out come May 9th when the three leaders come face to face for the first time in six and a half years.
Moon Connyoung, Arirang News, the Blue House."