Nuclear envoys from South Korea, the United States and Japan agreed on Wednesday to closely cooperate on North Korean nuclear issues, foreign ministry officials here said.
Lim Sung-nam, Seoul's chief envoy to the six-party talks on ending the North's nuclear weapons program, sat down for talks with his U.S. and Japanese counterparts, Glyn Davies and Shinsuke Sugiyama in Tokyo, the officials said.
"During the meeting, the three countries reaffirmed the importance of resolving the North's nuclear issues via the six-party talks, of maintaining stability on the Korean Peninsula ahead of the presidential elections in South Korea and the U.S., and of reminding ourselves of constructive roles by China and Russia to denuclearize the North," Lim told reporters after the meeting.
The six-party talks, which involve the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan, have been dormant since late 2008.
Based upon the results of the trilateral high-level meeting last month, the envoys jointly assessed the current situation of the Korean Peninsula including North Korea's nuclear and other issues, according to Seoul officials.
In September, South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba met on the sidelines of a United Nations General Assembly session in New York, and shared notes on the assessment of developments in North Korea and agreed to maintain cooperation on the matter, the department said.
The three-way talks among the envoys came amid reports of progress in the North's light-water reactor project that experts say may help expand its nuclear weapons capacity.
Last month, Lim visited Beijing and held talks with his Chinese counterpart Wu Dawei, through which the two sides agreed to keep a "close watch" on progress in Pyongyang's light-water atomic reactor project, according to Seoul officials.
South Korea is concerned that the North's reactor under construction at its main nuclear complex in Yongbyon might be a cover to stockpile enriched uranium, a fissile material used to make bombs, though Pyongyang claims it is for producing electricity.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has said North Korea has made "significant" progress in the light-water reactor project.
Citing satellite imagery, the U.N. said the North has put a dome over the facility.
Experts say the meeting is, in some part, intended to reaffirm close relations among the three key players in terms of North Korean matters as tension has run high between Seoul and Tokyo over Japan's renewed claim to South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo in recent months.
Seoul's envoy Lim said neither he nor Sugiyama mentioned the territorial issue during the meeting, adding "Today's meeting was solely devoted to North Korean issues."
After the trilateral talks in Tokyo, the U.S. envoy will make a three-day visit to South Korea from Oct. 18 as part of his regional trip to Northeast Asia, Seoul's foreign ministry spokesman Cho Tai-young told reporters. (Yonhap)
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