The leaders of China and Japan have met for formal talks after more than two years of tension over a territorial row, Japanese officials say.<\/p>\n
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese PM Shinzo Abe met on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) summit in Beijing.<\/p>\n
The talks are the first between the two leaders. Mr Abe said it was the first step to “improving ties”.<\/p>\n
Relations have been soured by the row over islands in the East China Sea.<\/p>\n
The strategically important islands, known as Diaoyu by China and Senkaku by Japan, are controlled by Japan.<\/p>\n
Tokyo’s decision to purchase three of them from their private Japanese owner in September 2012 led to an escalation in a dispute that has rumbled quietly for years.<\/p>\n
China has also complained about what it sees as Japan’s failure to adequately acknowledge its war-time actions.<\/p>\n
Mr Abe said the meeting was “the first step for improving ties by returning to mutually beneficial relations based on common strategic interests”, according to AFP news agency.<\/p>\n
He also said the two countries had agreed to start preparations to establish a maritime crisis mechanism, AFP said.<\/p>\n
There have been fears that a clash – accidental or otherwise – between Chinese and Japanese paramilitary vessels patrolling waters around the disputed islands could trigger a conflict.<\/p>\n
‘Robust conversation’<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The meeting came with leaders from the 21 Apec member-nations in the Chinese capital for two days of talks.<\/p>\n Bilateral meetings between top leaders are taking place on Monday, followed by a formal leaders’ summit on Tuesday.<\/p>\n The meeting comes as China looks to underline its growing status as regional leader and economic giant.<\/p>\n The Apec summit is the biggest event hosted so far by Mr Xi, who took over the Chinese presidency in March 2013.<\/p>\n Both US President Barack Obama and Russia leader Vladimir Putin are attending and will deliver speeches later in the day.<\/p>\n But the two men are not expected to hold talks, amid frosty ties over Russia’s support for separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n Australian leader Tony Abbott, however, says he is seeking a “robust conversation” with Mr Putin over MH17, the Malaysia Airlines plane brought down by a missile over Ukraine.<\/p>\n Talks would focus on “our absolute expectation that Russia will be as good as its word, that it will fully co-operate with the investigations that are underway and that it will do what it can to ensure that justice is done”, Mr Abbott said.<\/p>\n The plane is believed to have been hit by a surface-to-air missile fired from an area controlled by pro-Russian rebels. Russian officials have denied the allegations.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The leaders of China and Japan have met for formal talks after more than two years of tension over a territorial row, Japanese officials say. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese PM Shinzo Abe met on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) summit in Beijing. The talks are the first between the two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":63568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-63566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/63568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}