By Hyonhee Shin
SEOUL (Reuters) – China’s foreign minister will visit Seoul next week for meetings with officials there, South Korea’s foreign ministry said on Friday, amid efforts to resume bilateral summit diplomacy and stalled nuclear talks involving North Korea.
Wang Yi will arrive in South Korea on Wednesday for a three-day stay and meet his counterpart Kang Kyung-wha for a high-level bilateral exchange and to discuss regional issues including North Korea and the COVID-19 outbreak, the ministry said in a statement.
Wang’s trip would come as the two countries explore a potential visit to Seoul by Chinese President Xi Jinping, which had been expected early this year but was postponed as the pandemic wiped clean much of the global diplomatic calendar.
The Chinese foreign minister is the second senior diplomat to travel to South Korea since the coronavirus emerged in China late last year, after Yang Jiechi, a member of the Communist Party Politburo, visited the southern port city of Busan in August.
(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
