Beijing, Aug 28: With the US declining to formally meet with the North Korean side, other parties to the six-way talks here on Pyongyang's nuclear issue today held bilateral talks to break the impasse.
Heads of the Japanese and North Korean delegations met on the sidelines of the six-party talks, a Japanese official said.
The two sides met twice at the Diaoyutai state guesthouse. They discussed the nuclear arms issue and the Cold War era abduction of Japanese citizens in the talks that lasted for 40 minutes, the official, who declined to be identified, said.
A South Korean official, Jeong Woo-Jin, said the six-party talks in the morning session on the second day of the three-day meeting lasted nearly four hours during which delegations discussed the keynote speeches delivered by each side yesterday, expressed their own views and expounded their positions.
He said the six-way talks would not reconvene this afternoon but the six delegations were expected to hold bilateral or trilateral talks in the afternoon.

The Russian side was scheduled to separately meet delegations from North Korea and the US.

Reports said that before the talks started this morning, the US, South Korea and Japan held trilateral meetings in the US embassy here.
Bureau Report