23/7 Tass 55
BALI ISLAND, Indonesia, July 23 (Itar-Tass) — Foreign ministers from the two Koreas, KIM Sung-hwan of South Korea and PAK Ui Chun of North Korea, have had a brief meeting, after a three-year break. They met on Saturday on Indonesia’ s Bali, a venue for a summit of the Association of East Asian Nations (ASEAN).
This is the first such meeting since 2008. On Friday, top-ranking officials from foreign ministries of the two countries who are responsible for nuclear problems met on the summit’s sidelines. No further information is available.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who is participating in the Russia-ASEAN ministerial meeting and an annual ASEAN regional forum for security in the Asia-Pacific Region, said the six-party negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear problem will be resumed soon.
The six-party negotiations involving Russia, China, the United States, Japan and both Koreas on the nuclear problem of the Korean Peninsula are held with long intervals in Beijing since August 27, 2003. North Korea quitted the sixth round of negotiations on September 30, 2007.