Japanese envoy in China for North Korea talks
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-02-27 14:28

A Japanese envoy was in China for talks that included ways to restart stalled negotiations aimed at halting North Korea's nuclear weapons development program, a Japanese diplomat said.

South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon (C), Director-General of Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asia-Oceania bureau Kenichiro Sasae (L) and U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Christopher Hill join hands during a meeting in Seoul February 26, 2005. [Reuters]

Kenichiro Sasae, head of the Japanese foreign ministry's Asia-Oceania bureau, was scheduled to meet with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei later in the day, the diplomat said.

The two would discuss "bilateral ties and regional issues," including North Korea, according to the Japanese official.

Sasae, his country's chief delegate to six-nation talks on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions, arrived in Beijing Saturday fresh from talks in Seoul with US and South Korean officials on the standoff with North Korea.

Shortly after arriving in China, Sasae met with Cui Tiankai, head of the Chinese foreign ministry's Asian Affairs Department, according to the Japanese diplomat.

At the end of the Seoul talks attended by Sasae Saturday, the United States, Japan and South Korea urged North Korea to drop any conditions and immediately come back to multilateral talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons program.

The three allies insisted there would be no incentives in advance to persuade NKorean to return to the six-party talks, saying Pyongyang may put its own issues of concern on the table once dialogue was revived.

The Saturday meeting was part of a flurry of diplomacy aimed at getting Pyongyang back to the negotiating table.

The six-party talks, which began in August 2003, have been in limbo since an inconclusive third round in Beijing in June last year. Pyongyang refused to attend a fourth round last September, citing US "hostility."

The nuclear standoff erupted in October 2002 when the United States accused North Korea of operating a program based on highly enriched uranium.

North Korea on February 10 said it was suspending indefinitely its participation in the six-party talks, declaring it has manufactured nuclear weapons.

The talks include the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

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