Senior diplomats from South Korea, China and Japan held a meeting in Tokyo on Sunday to prepare for a foreign ministers' gathering that can help the countries tackle outstanding issues.

Kim Hyoung-zhin, deputy foreign minister of South Korea, met with Liu Zhenmin and Takeo Akiba, his Chinese and Japanese counterparts, according to Seoul's foreign ministry.

The high-ranking meeting is the 11th of its kind since it was first convened in March 2007 as a major channel to exchange views between the three neighboring Northeast Asian countries.

The meeting is aimed at making preparations for a gathering of the three countries' foreign ministers that Tokyo wants to hold on Wednesday. A trilateral meeting of top diplomats could allow policymakers to set the tone for a summit of their leaders that would take place at the Group of 20 meeting to be held in China next month.

In addition, foreign ministers can touch on territorial disputes between Beijing and Tokyo over a group of islands in the East China Sea, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. Seoul and Beijing can also discuss the deployment of an advanced U.S. missile shield on the Korean Peninsula.

The East China Sea dispute and China's objections to South Korea deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system have caused friction among the countries.

Sources familiar with the talks said that initially China was lukewarm about talks, but the country started to show signs of change more recently and sent its representative to the Japanese capital.

Besides thorny matters, the foreign ministers can exchange views on expanding cooperation that can benefit all sides and evaluate current global and regional developments. (Yonhap)