TOKYO — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Japan and South Korea to cool tempers in their showdown over contested islands, as part of a wider U.S. effort to defuse rising regional tensions stoked by maritime disputes.
“I raised these issues with both of them,” Clinton said Sunday after meeting Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Vladivostok, Russia.
She said she told the countries’ leaders “that their interests really lie in making sure that they lower the temperature and work together in a concerted way to have a calm and restrained approach.”
Noda didn’t have bilateral meetings with the leaders of South Korea or China at the summit, only holding brief discussions with Lee and President Hu Jintao of China, with which Japan also has a dispute.
A spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, Qin Gang, said Saturday that Japan should “pay attention” to his country’s resolve to safeguard its sovereignty.
Clinton, who on Sunday wrapped up a six-nation, 11-day tour, has tried to douse a diplomatic showdown between U.S. allies Japan and South Korea, as well as conflicts in the South China Sea, through which half of the world’s commercial cargo flows. China has condemned Japan’s plan to buy islands, known as Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese, lying in the East China Sea near oil and gas reserves.
Noda tried to dial back tensions at the summit in Vladivostok, saying he had told Hu and Lee in their informal meetings that it was important to preserve and deepen ties. Noda said he also told Lee that ties between their countries were important because of the threat posed by North Korea.
“I said let’s build ties based on the big picture,” Noda told reporters.
