President Moon Jae-in will hold summits with the leaders of China and Russia on the sidelines of the summit of major Group of 20 countries set for Japan next week, the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said Friday.
Moon will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the fringe of the Group of 20 summit slated for Osaka on June 28-29. Moon will embark on a three-day trip Thursday.
He will also hold summits with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Indonesian President Joko Widodo, it added.
(Yonhap)
As for skepticism about Moon's push for a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Ko Min-jung, Moon's spokesperson, said, "We are keeping the door open to (the holding of) the Korea-Japan summit."
Japan strongly indicated Abe won't hold a one-on-one meeting with Moon during the Group of 20 session, as he's displeased with the Moon government's attitude toward Japan's wartime forced labor.
Many Koreans were forced to toil at Japanese factories during World War II when Korea was under its brutal colonization in 1910-1945. South Korean courts ordered relevant Japanese firms to provide compensation for the forced labor.
Early this week, South Korea proposed to Japan that companies from both nations set up a joint fund to compensate the forced labor victims, but Tokyo effectively rejected the offer.
"(At the G-20 summit), Moon will stress the need for international cooperation and policy coordination to stabilize the global financial system and ease trade frictions, and plans to explain the government's push to build an innovative and inclusive nation and peace efforts with North Korea," Ko added. (Yonhap)