Lee-Hatoyama Summit Due in Seoul Next Week

By Na Jeong-ju Staff Reporter Lee-Hatoyama Summit Due in Seoul Next Week President Lee Myung-bak will hold a bilateral summit with Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama in Seoul on Oct. 9 before they head for Beijing for a three-way summit with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao the following day, Cheong Wa Dae said Thursday. Lee and Hatoyama will discuss issues concerning North Korea's nuclear program and ways to move Korea-Japan relations forward. Topics may also include Lee's recent proposal for Japan's Emperor Akihito to visit Seoul next year on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Japan's annexation of Korea. Japan colonized Korea from 1910 to 1945. ``The two leaders will exchange views on various issues of mutual interest, including geopolitical risks surrounding the Korean Peninsula and the Group of 20 meeting,'' the presidential office said in a press release. Lee and Hatoyama held their first summit in New York last week on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, in which they agreed to build a ``constructive and future-oriented'' relationship between the two countries. They discussed the goal of denuclearizing North Korea within the framework of the six-party talks, which also involves the United States, China and Russia. Thorny historical issues, over which the two countries have often sparred in the past, were excluded from the agenda. The planned summit in Seoul will be crucial for the two leaders to coordinate policies on North Korea ahead of their meeting with Chinese Prime Minister Wen. Wen himself plans to visit Pyongyang early next week. The meetings come amid increasing efforts to bring the North back to the six-party denuclearization talks that it quit in April in protest of the United Nations' decision to levy sanctions over its long-range rocket launch. Seoul officials are also paying keen attention to how Japan will react to President Lee's proposal for Emperor Akihito to visit Seoul. ``Korea and Japan have had difficulty in improving relations due to the past,'' Lee said in an interview with Japan's Kyodo News on Sept. 15. ``The Emperor has traveled all around the world, but couldn't visit Korea. I'm confident that Korea-Japan relations will improve rapidly if he visits Korea.'' jj@koreatimes.co.kr