Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, center, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, left, and South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, right, pose for photographers prior to the official banquet of the trilateral foreign ministers meeting in Tokyo, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2016. AP
TOKYO — The foreign ministers of China, Japan and South Korea, meeting for their annual trilateral talks, have criticized North Korea’s fresh missile launch just hours earlier in the day.
The talks, held in Tokyo amid frictions between Beijing and its neighbors over territorial claims and regional security, renewed concerns over Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear tests.
Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, chairing Wednesday’s meeting with China’s Wang Yi and South Korea’s Yu Byung-se, said North Korea’s missile launch “simply cannot be tolerated.”
North Korea fired a ballistic missile from a submarine into the Sea of Japan.
First held in 2007, the trilateral meetings resumed last year after a two year hiatus amid strained Chinese-Japanese relations.
Tensions between Tokyo and Beijing also remain high over disputed East China Sea island.
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