SEOUL, South Korea — The foreign ministers of South Korea, China and Japan have met for the first time in three years and agreed to work together to restore trilateral summit talks among their leaders.

Three-way talks among the countries' top diplomats had been suspended amid bitter historical and territorial disputes rooted in Japan's brutal colonization of the Korean Peninsula and invasion of China in the first half of the 20th century.

Anti-Japan sentiments in South Korea and Japan have grown sharply in recent years over what is seen as Tokyo's push to obscure its bloody past.

The foreign ministers said in a joint statement after Saturday's meeting in Seoul that they would make efforts to resume trilateral summit talks that have been suspended since 2012.