SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Leaders of South Korea, Japan and China will meet next week for a summit expected to focus on North Korea's nuclear program and other regional issues.

The three Asian countries have been holding regular trilateral summits since late 2008.

South Korea's presidential office said Tuesday that President Moon Jae-in will attend the May 9 meeting in Tokyo with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

The Japanese government also confirmed the meeting.

Moon's office says he will brief Abe and Li about the results of his recent summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

It says Moon also plans to discuss ways to boost three-way cooperation in achieving denuclearization and permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula. </s> Japan to host summit with China, South Korea on May 9

Japan will host a summit with President Moon Jae-in of South Korea and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Tokyo on May 9 to discuss regional issues, the government said on Tuesday, with observers expecting North Korea to be high on the agenda, Reuters reports.

The meeting, which has been hosted in turn by each of the three nations since the first one was held in Japan in 2008, aims to strengthen dialogue and cooperation. It is the third time Japan has hosted the meeting, the Foreign Ministry said.

Bracketing the summit, Li will make a state visit to Japan from May 8 to 11, during which he will meet Emperor Akihito, the ministry added. </s> TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan will host a summit with President Moon Jae-in of South Korea and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Tokyo on May 9 to discuss regional issues, the government said on Tuesday, with observers expecting North Korea to be high on the agenda.

The meeting, which has been hosted in turn by each of the three nations since the first one was held in Japan in 2008, aims to strengthen dialogue and cooperation. It is the third time Japan has hosted the meeting, the Foreign Ministry said.

Bracketing the summit, Li will make a state visit to Japan from May 8 to 11, during which he will meet Emperor Akihito, the ministry added.

Moon held a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday, when both sides agreed to work toward denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Kim is also due to meet U.S. President Donald Trump in coming weeks. </s> TOKYO, May 1 (Reuters) - Japan will host a summit with President Moon Jae-in of South Korea and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Tokyo on May 9 to discuss regional issues, the government said on Tuesday, with observers expecting North Korea to be high on the agenda.

The meeting, which has been hosted in turn by each of the three nations since the first one was held in Japan in 2008, aims to strengthen dialogue and cooperation. It is the third time Japan has hosted the meeting, the Foreign Ministry said.

Bracketing the summit, Li will make a state visit to Japan from May 8 to 11, during which he will meet Emperor Akihito, the ministry added.

Moon held a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday, when both sides agreed to work towards denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. Kim is also due to meet U.S. President Donald Trump in coming weeks. </s> Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe(R) will host a summit with President Moon Jae-in (L) of South Korea and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Tokyo on May 9 to discuss regional issues, the government said on Tuesday, with observers expecting North Korea to be high on the agenda.

[TOKYO] Japan will host a summit with President Moon Jae-in of South Korea and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Tokyo on May 9 to discuss regional issues, the government said on Tuesday, with observers expecting North Korea to be high on the agenda.

The meeting, which has been hosted in turn by each of the three nations since the first one was held in Japan in 2008, aims to strengthen dialogue and cooperation. It is the third time Japan has hosted the meeting, the Foreign Ministry said.

Bracketing the summit, Mr Li will make a state visit to Japan from May 8 to 11, during which he will meet Emperor Akihito, the ministry added.

Mr Moon held a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday, when both sides agreed to work towards denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. Kim is also due to meet US President Donald Trump in coming weeks. </s> South Korea, China and Japan will hold a trilateral summit in Tokyo next week, Seoul announced Tuesday, the latest move in a diplomatic whirlwind centred around North Korea.

It follows a historic and headline-grabbing summit between Moon and the North's leader Kim Jong Un last Friday. They vowed to pursue denuclearization and a peace treaty to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War, setting the mood for Kim's much-anticipated face-to-face encounter with US President Donald Trump.

But analysts have urged caution, warning that similar previous pledges have come to nothing, and that the North has yet to make clear what concessions it is willing to make with its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

All three of the neighbours are deeply involved with North Korea -- the South as its neighbour, key US ally Japan as a sometime target for its threats, and China as its key diplomatic backer and business partner.

Friday's summit, in which Kim and Moon exchanged smiles, handshakes and warm words in front of the world's cameras, was a marked contrast to the tensions of last year.

The North staged its most powerful nuclear test to date and launched missiles capable of reaching the US mainland as Kim and Trump traded threats of war and personal insults, sparking global security fears.

The thaw between the Koreas, triggered by the Winter Olympics in the South, has repercussions for the geopolitics of the region.

Japan has long maintained a hardline position on negotiations with Pyongyang but has found itself left on the sidelines.

With concerning growing in Tokyo over whether it should change tack, a hawkish Abe expressed a willingness to meet Kim -- a message which Moon relayed to the North's leader during the summit.

Kim said in response he was "willing to talk to Japan any time", Moon's office said on Sunday, adding the South's leader would be "happy to build a bridge" between the two nations.

But Moon's trip to Tokyo will be the first visit by a South Korean leader to Japan in more than six years, with relations between the two US allies marred by disputes over history and territory. </s> SEOUL: Top US, South Korean and Japanese officials have discussed how to achieve a complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula ahead of upcoming inter-Korean and US-North Korean summit talks. Seoul has said previously that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed to hold summit talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in late April. Seoul says Kim proposed meeting with President Donald Trump , and Trump agreed to him by the end of May.The developments have raised hopes for a potential breakthrough in the North Korean nuclear crisis.US National Security Adviser HR McMaster met his South Korean and Japanese counterparts in San Francisco for talks over the weekend on denuclearization and the summit talks.South Korea's presidential office says the three agreed to maintain close trilateral cooperation. </s> BEIJING (Reuters) - No areas will be off limits in talks next week when Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visits Japan, but North Korea is not going to be a focus, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Friday.

China and Japan, Asia’s two largest economies, have been trying to reset ties after years of increasingly bitter dispute over a group of uninhabited islets in the East China Sea and the legacy of Japan’s invasion of China before and during World War Two.

Japan will host a summit with Li and South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in in Tokyo on May 9 to discuss regional issues, where North Korea had been expected to be high on the agenda.

The meeting, which has been hosted in turn by each of the three nations since the first held in Japan in 2008, aims to strengthen dialogue and cooperation.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou said Li’s trip to Japan, the first by a Chinese premier in eight years, represented a “rare development opportunity”, though he admitted challenges remain.

“There will be no off-limits areas,” Kong told reporters, referring to the talks between Li and Abe.

“As long as there are subjects both are interested in, they can be put on the table for candid discussion. (We) hope to increase understanding through discussion, which is helpful to narrowing differences on certain problems.”

While North Korea and other regional issues would come up and would be discussed with both Japan and South Korea so that the three sides could better coordinate policy, the isolated country was not a focus.

“I personally think this China-Japan-South Korea meeting is not to mostly discuss the situation on the Korean peninsula. It’s mainly to discuss regional cooperation between the three,” said Kong, who is also China’s special envoy for the North Korean nuclear issue.

“So I think it will be hard for the three of them to have sufficient time to have deep talks on this issue.”

Bracketing the summit, Li will make a state visit to Japan from May 8 to 11, when he will meet Emperor Akihito, Japan has said.

At Moon’s summit last month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, both sides agreed to work towards denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. Kim is also due to meet U.S. President Donald Trump in coming weeks.

Li will travel to Indonesia before going to Japan.

Indonesia is seeking ways to speed up a $5-billion high-speed rail project being built by a consortium of local and Chinese state firms which faces obstacles over land ownership issues. </s> "National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster of the United States, National Security Office Director Chung Eui-yong of the Republic of Korea, and Secretary General of the National Security Secretariat Shotaro Yachi of Japan held a trilateral meeting on March 17 and 18 in San Francisco to discuss the permanent denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the planned inter-Korean summit and United States-Democratic People’s Republic of Korea summit," the release said.

On March 5-6, a high-ranking South Korean delegation visited North Korea for talks with Kim Jong-un. South Korean diplomats later delivered a message from Kim Jong-un to Donald Trump, in which the former expressed his willingness to hold direct talks. Trump accepted the invitation to meet with Kim by the end of May.
Japan, China, and South Korea agree in principle to hold a trilateral summit in May.