President Lee Myung-bak, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will likely open their upcoming summit in the nuclear disaster-stricken city of Fukushima before moving to Tokyo.
China was earlier reported to be reluctant to expose Wen to the risk. But a South Korean government source said Monday, "The venue of the summit will be announced soon now that China has changed its mind."
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu on Sunday appeared to confirm this, saying Wen "will meet Japanese people in disaster-stricken areas including Fukushima and express support for reconstruction of Japan."
Seoul until last Saturday said it had not agreed to opening the summit in Fukushima and is "studying the possibility."
But President Lee Myung-bak, returning from Europe on Sunday, apparently said he is willing to go to Fukushima and told staff to take the position of Korea's disaster-stricken neighbor into consideration as much as possible.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant suffered a series of devastating accidents in the wake of a massive earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in March.
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