SYDNEY, Australia _ The foreign ministers of South Korea and China met Saturday in Sydney and agreed to work together on resolving the North Korean nuclear issue, Korean officials said.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry said Song Min-soon and Chinese minister Yang Jiechi concurred that the six-way talks are making progress. The six nations are two Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia
The diplomats also reiterated that Seoul and Beijing will work together to set up a workable plan so Pyongyang can follow through on its pledge to disable its nuclear program.
Details of the ministerial talks have not been released, but diplomatic sources expect that key topics were disabling North Korea's main nuclear complex in Yongbyon and setting a timetable for such steps to be taken.
On February 13, North Korea promised to give up its nuclear weapons programs in return for political and economic incentives provided by the other members of the six-way talks.
Song and his Chinese counterpart were in the Australian coastal city for an annual meeting of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, which opened a two-day summit of leaders on Saturday.
In addition to the North Korean nuclear issue, Song said that the inter-Korean summit planned for Oct. 2-4 will advance South-North relations, enhance peace and stability in the region and contribute to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Yang said he expects positive results to come from the meeting.
Song met with his U.S. and Japanese counterparts in Sydney earlier this week to discuss related issues.
Brisk diplomacy is underway to encourage North Kore to keep its promise to disarm under an aid-for-denuclearization agreement reached in February. As part of the deal, the North has already shut down five key nuclear facilities and admitted U.N. nuclear inspectors to monitor its actions.
In the second-stage of the deal, the North is required to disable those facilities that have been shut down, and declare all of its nuclear programs, presumably including its suspected uranium-enrichment program.
No timeframe has been set for the second stage of the agreement, but U.S. officials have said their goal is to see the disablement take place by year's end.
In a bilateral meeting with the U.S. in Geneva last week, North Korea confirmed its intention to complete the disablement phase of the agreement by the end of this year, according to Washington's top nuclear envoy, Christopher Hill.
(Yonhap)