The United States is urging Japan and China to shun provocations in favor of dialogue to resolve the dispute over the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
Asked to comment about the developments in the territorial row, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Monday that "they need to work this out through consultation and not through provocation."
Ten Japanese demonstrators, including local assembly members, on Sunday landed on Uotsuri, the largest in the chain of islets, without authorization. Authorities deported 14 Chinese activists after they landed on the islet last Wednesday.
The Senkaku Islands are claimed by China and Taiwan. Washington says it is not taking sides in the territorial dispute.
China briefed on talks
KyodoA senior Japanese diplomat has briefed his Chinese counterpart in a multilateral dialogue aimed at denuclearizing North Korea about the upcoming Japan-North Korea governmental talks scheduled for Aug. 29, officials said.
Shinsuke Sugiyama, director general of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, told Wu Dawei, China's special representative for Korean Peninsula affairs, by phone Monday that Tokyo intends to take up the abductions of Japanese nationals by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s in the upcoming talks with Pyongyang, they said.
Wu serves as chairman of the six-party talks involving the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the U.S. Sugiyama will represent Japan at the talks with North Korea, to be held in Beijing.