TOKYO, Feb 18 — Japan and China will hold security talks next week, Japanese foreign minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said after meeting his Chinese counterpart on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference today.

The agreement to hold the security talks, the first to be held in four years, came after Hayashi and China’s top diplomat Wang Yi spoke ahead of the conference.

"It is important for us to have frank discussions precisely because there are a number of pressing matters in our relationship,” Hayashi said to reporters, highlighting a territorial spat in the East China Sea and increasing Chinese military presence around Japanese waters as some of the issues that need to be discussed.

The disputed East China Sea islets claimed by both China and Japan have long been a sticking point in bilateral relations. China calls the islands Diaoyu, while Japan calls them Senkaku. — Reuters