The leaders of South Korea, Japan and China will hold their annual trilateral summit in Beijing on Sunday to enhance their cooperation in a variety of areas including security, business and trade, Cheong Wa Dae said Wednesday.

President Lee Myung-bak, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Chinese President Hu Jintao will discuss ways to expand cooperation in finances, joint response to natural disasters, weather information and education, the presidential office said.

North Korea is likely to top the security agenda as uncertainty with its young, untested leader Kim Jong-un still lingers amid speculations that it is preparing another underground nuclear test, experts noted.

A summit declaration is to be adopted at the close of the trilateral meeting. It is to evaluate the progress in the three countries’ cooperation and reaffirm their will to strengthen a “future-oriented comprehensive partnership,” Lee’s office said.

The declaration will underscore the need to increase cooperation in business, environment, renewable energy, and social, cultural and people-to-people exchanges. It will also state their determination to address regional and global issues such as climate change.

The declaration will also have an annex on trilateral cooperation in agriculture, sustainable forest management, prevention of deforestation, responses to natural disasters and wild life protection.

During the summit, the three countries are also to sign an agreement to set clear legal, systematic grounds to protect their investors operating in each other’s territories.

Meanwhile, Japan has reportedly deferred its offering of a solution to the long-standing compensation issue surrounding South Korean women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II.

Asahi Shimbun reported on Wednesday that Tokyo made the decision as it failed to reconcile differences with the Seoul government.

The issue of so-called “comfort women” was a persistent source of diplomatic friction between the two countries. Seoul has demanded that Japan sincerely devise its solution to the urgent issue while the old victims of wartime atrocities are still alive.

Last December, President pressed Japan to address the issue, underscoring that the issue has been a stumbling block in the way of the two nations working toward a “mature, future-oriented” relationship.

Japan had argued that the issue was settled under a 1965 bilateral pact, while Seoul maintains that comfort women issues are separate from the deal and should be dealt with from the humanitarian standpoint.

The trilateral summit has been held annually since 2008 when its inaugural one took place in Fukuoka, Japan. The second one was held in Beijing while the third and fourth ones were held on Jeju Island, South Korea, and Tokyo, Japan, respective.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)