BANGKOK, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- The leaders of Japan and China, meeting in Bangkok, agreed Monday to work on boosting bilateral relations, the Kyodo news agency reported.
The pair did not, however, discuss the possibility of visiting each other's countries in the near future, Japanese officials said.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Chinese President Hu Jintao, meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit in Bangkok, also reconfirmed their intentions to expand bilateral exchanges in a wide range of fields.
They also touched on last week's agreement between the two countries that Japan will pay $2.5 million for the recent fatal leak of poisonous gas from chemical weapons left in northeastern China by the Japanese military at the end of World War II.
Koizumi told Hu the Japanese government will deal "sincerely" with the task of disposing of the weapons, and the Chinese leader asked Japan to speed up the process.
