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Japan Says It Isnâ€™t Seeking Bilateral Meeting With North Korea

21 July 2010 00:55 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Japan said it isnâ€™t seeking a bilateral meeting of foreign ministers with North Korea during an Asian security summit in Hanoi this week, APA reports quoting businessweek.com website.
Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada â€œhas no intention at this pointâ€ of meeting with his North Korean counterpart, Pak Ui Chun, Hidenobu Sobashima, deputy press secretary at the ministry told reporters in the Vietnamese capital today. They might have a chance to meet naturally during the summit, he said.
Japan is part of the six-party forum that is seeking to persuade North Korea to resume talks on dismantling its nuclear weapons program. South Korea has ruled out any resumption unless North Korea apologizes for the March 26 sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan, which an international panel blamed on Kim Jong Ilâ€™s regime.
The six-party talks, also involving China, Russia and the U.S., havenâ€™t convened since December 2008. Japan proposed a bilateral meeting with North Korea, Nikkei English News reported earlier today, without citing a source for the article.
North Korea on July 10 expressed a willingness to return to disarmament talks, a day after the United Nations Security Council adopted a statement falling short of blaming the country for the Cheonan attack. South Koreaâ€™s Foreign Minister Yu Myung Hwan on July 18 dismissed the North Korean overture as a ploy to divert attention from the sinking.
North Korea withdrew from the six-party process after UN sanctions imposed in response to missile tests. The country exploded a second nuclear device in May 2009 after conducting its first test in 2006.