TOKYO: Top nuclear negotiators from Japan, South Korea and the United States will meet next week in Tokyo to discuss North Korea, the Japanese foreign ministry said yesterday.
They will confirm close cooperation to address North Korean issues, it said, as Tokyo and Seoul remain entangled in a still-fresh territorial dispute.
US special representative for North Korea policy Glyn Davies, Seoul’s Lim Sung-Nam, envoy for the six-nation denuclearisation forum, and Japanese senior official Shinsuke Sugiyama will meet on Wednesday, an official statement said.
The senior officials will follow up on three-way talks by foreign ministers last month, which were hosted by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in New York.
The three allies discussed the stalled six-party talks aimed at persuading North Korea to end its suspect nuclear programme.
In the meeting with South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-Hwan and Japan’s Koichiro Gemba, Clinton also insisted that Asian nations have “a responsibility” to lower tensions amid a heated war of words between regional powers over disputed island chains.
The ties between Tokyo and Seoul suddenly cooled as Japan reacted furiously at South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak’s visit to islands known as the Dokdos in Korean and Takeshimas in Japanese.
Lee’s visit comes soon after Japan renewed its claim over Takeshima in its annual defence paper, and days before South Korea marks the anniversary of its liberation from Japanese rule at the end of the second world war.
In 2010, South Korea’s media reported the discovery of a 1949 US military map that clearly states Dokdo belongs to Korea.
The territory is controlled by Seoul but claimed by both countries.
AFP
