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  • SOUTH KOREA: Japanese and South Korean foreign ministers discuss North Korea's nuclear issues

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SOUTH KOREA: Japanese and South Korean foreign ministers discuss North Korea's nuclear issues

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso has had talks with South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon to discuss North Korea's nuclear issues. After the meeting in Seoul Ban told reporters that Aso said he understood South Korean government's situation over the United Nations' sanctions against North Korea. On Thursday night, the two men had met U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Rice was beginning her trip to the region as intelligence experts said satellites had spotted an increase in activity at a suspected nuclear test site in North Korea. Ban said the meeting was a show of unity among the three allies and would be able to send a very strong message to North Korea, a pool report said. The three-way meeting was the first since 2000. The United States said on Thursday it was open to negotiations with North Korea over its nuclear ambitions with attention now focused on whether China had managed to persuade the North to defuse the mounting crisis. Chinese President Hu Jintao sent a high-level envoy to Pyongyang for talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il amid growing speculation that Pyongyang might be about to detonate a second nuclear device. Rice is expected to meet Tang when she goes to Beijing on Friday on the third leg of her trip to Far East Asia that began in Tokyo on Wednesday. China has backed new U.N. sanctions against North Korea of its first nuclear test last week but has urged the United States not to push the reclusive North further into a corner over the issue. Washington is worried that Japan and South Korea might build up their own weaponry in response to North Korea's nuclear test. In Japan, Rice assured Asian allies that the United States stood ready to protect them. The Korean peninsula was divided after World War Two and fought a war from 1950 to 1953, with the North backed by China and the South by U.S.-led United Nations forces. ends

ITN Source | October 20, 2006Watch more videos from ITN Source

Tags:. .washington. .china. .told. .might. .east











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