The foreign ministers of South Korea, China and Japan must have a "candid" discussion about their shared history, China's foreign ministry said Friday, expressing caution about the prospects of holding a three-way summit among leaders from the three nations.
  

Saturday's meeting in Seoul of the three foreign ministers -- Yun Byung-se from South Korea, Wang Yi from China and Fumio Kishida from Japan -- will be the first of its kind since 2012. History and territorial rows have prevented them from meeting together.
  

The last three-way summit of leaders from the three nations was held in 2012, about a month after their foreign ministers met, but analysts were skeptical whether such a summit would be possible this time.
  

Asked about the prospects of holding a trilateral summit following the Saturday meeting, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei replied, "We hope that the foreign ministers of the three countries will have a candid exchange of views on the issue of history in the spirit of facing up to history."
  

"Over the past several years, the issue of history has become an important item in the trilateral relationship," Hong said. "It is also the reason why the trilateral meeting was suspended over the past several years." 
  

Diplomatic tensions between China and Japan run deep because of competing claims over islands in the East China Sea. Relations between Seoul and Tokyo also remain frayed over Japan's unrepentant attitude on its wartime atrocities, including the sexual enslavement of women by the Japanese military during World War II. (Yonhap)