US, South Korea, Japan envoys to meet on North Korea

SEOUL: South Korean, Japanese and US negotiators will meet on Saturday in Seoul to coax North Korea back to talks on its nuclear programmes but ruled out meeting new conditions, South Korea’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. The meeting comes after North Korean leader Kim Jong-il told a visiting Chinese envoy this week that Pyongyang would return to six-party nuclear talks if conditions were right and Washington showed sincerity, the North’s official media reported. It was the first statement by the reclusive Kim since North Korea explicitly declared on Feb. 10 that it had atomic weapons and was also pulling out of the talks with South Korea, China, Russia, the United States and Japan. “The government agreed to hold a three-way meeting between South Korea, the United States and China in Seoul on February 26 to discuss the result of the visit by China’s Wang Jiarui to the North and the early resumption of the six-party talks,” South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon told reporters. “There should be no conditions for returning to the talks because we are already in the process of negotiations,” he said. reuters

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