Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and his Japanese counterpart Taro Aso will hold meeting on the sidelines of the Asia Cooperation Dialogue, scheduled to be held in Qatar on May 23 and 24.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao revealed the news on Tuesday.

"In the past two weeks, the two sides have kept contacting and conducting consultations with one another about the meeting," Liu told a regular press conference held here on Tuesday.

During the fifth round of China-Japan strategic dialogue in early May in China, the two countries discussed possible foreign minister-level meeting on multilateral occasions.

Leaders of the two countries have suspended exchanges since Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro began paying homage to the controversial Yasukuni war shrine soon after he took office in 2001. The two Foreign Ministers have rarely had contact.

The Yasukuni Shrine which honors Japan's war dead, including 14 class A criminals of World War II.

Source: Xinhua