Seoul: Sanctions on North Korea will not be removed until Pyongyang returns to disarmament talks and takes serious steps toward scrapping its nuclear arms program, the foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan said on Thursday.
The comments come as the North`s top nuclear envoy is in Beijing in a sign the reclusive state may be moving closer to a return to so-called six-party nuclear talks hosted by its key ally, China.
North Korea has come under increasing pressure to return to the forum it has boycotted for more than a year as UN sanctions imposed after a nuclear test dry up its coffers and a financial policy blunder in late 2009 add to its economic woes.
"We shared the view that North Korea needs to take denuclearisation steps in order for there to be peace treaty talks and the lifting of sanctions," Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada told a briefing in Seoul.
South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said the five countries involved in negotiations with the North aimed to keep up the pressure on North Korea through sanctions while continuing to pursue dialogue to prod it back to the talks.
The talks involve the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and China and began in 2003.
North Korea has called for a peace treaty with United States to replace the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War as a condition to returning to the disarmament deal that it signed in 2005 in return for massive economic aid.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il told a visiting Chinese envoy this week that his country was willing to talk about how to restart the stalled multi-national process.
Some analysts said the dispatch of Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan, who represents the North at the six-way forum, to Beijing indicated that the two countries were working out a face-saving measure for Pyongyang to return to dialogue.
Bureau Report
