The two top diplomats from South Korea and Japan on Saturday rebuffed North Korea's call for early talks on a peace treaty, saying any such concessions will only be made after the North first committees to denuclearization.
The joint call between South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan and his Japanese counterpart Katsuya Okada was made at a bilateral meeting held on the sidelines of the Forum for East Asia-Latin America Cooperation here. The South Korean minister arrived in the Japanese capital on Friday.
"They noted the removal of U.N.-imposed sanctions on North Korea can be considered by the U.N. Security Council, but only when there is progress in the process of denuclearizing North Korea," an official accompanying the South Korean minister told reporters at the breakfast meeting, Yonhap said.
North Korea's foreign ministry said on Monday that its return to the six-nation nuclear talks hinges on the removal of U.N. sanctions imposed shortly after its second nuclear detonation test last year.
Seoul and its close allies, Tokyo and Washington, have expressed opposition to giving concessions to the communist North until it sincerely commits itself to full and irreversible denuclearization steps.