External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee arrived in Harbin early on Wednesday for the third standalone meeting of the foreign ministers of India-Russia-China scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.

Mukherjee, accompanied by senior officials arrived in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, by a special plane on Wednesday morning.

He will hold talks with his Chinese and Russian counterparts, Yang Jiechi and Sergei Lavrov respectively.

Prior to the meeting, Yang will host a luncheon and the three foreign ministers are to attend a banquet hosted by the Communist Party secretary of Heilongjiang Province Qian Yunlu on Wednesday evening.

The three foreign ministers are expected to discuss regional and international issues and expansion of trilateral cooperation, official sources said.

While Mukherjee is scheduled to hold bilateral talks with Yang on Thursday it is not clear if he will meet Lavrov.

This will be the third standalone trilateral Foreign Ministers' meeting after the last one in New Delhi in February 2007 and the first one in Vladivostok in June 2005.

The first summit meeting among the leaders of India, Russia [Images] and China took place on July 17, 2006, in St Petersburg [Images] on the sidelines of the meetings among G-8 and the outreach countries.

The ongoing visit to China by Mukherjee is his first as external affairs minister. He had visited China in May 2006 as defence minister.