Agence France-Presse,
The foreign ministers of South Korea, China and Japan called Sunday for flexibility to end a complex financial dispute blocking North Korea's nuclear disarmament.
The ministers stressed the need for “settlements that should go beyond the legal and technical hurdles while taking care of each other's interests,” according to South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-Soon.
The months-long nuclear deadlock was a key focus of their meeting, the first of its kind. The three countries are also part of a six-nation forum which since 2003 has been encouraging North Korea to scrap its nuclear ambitions.
The North itself and the United States and Russia are the other members.
Song, China's Yang Jiechi and Japan's Taro Aso said it was in everyone's interests to honour the February 13 six-nation accord, under which the impoverished but nuclear-armed communist state agreed to close its only working reactor at Yongbyon by mid-April.
It was to be the first step in a full nuclear disarmament process, in return for massive aid and diplomatic concessions.
But the North refuses to act until it recovers its 25 million dollars frozen in a Macau bank since 2005 under US-instigated sanctions.
The United States has since unfrozen the funds but North Korea has had difficulty finding a foreign bank to transfer money seen as tainted.
“The consensus is that the current deadlock does not help anybody,” Song told reporters.
He said Japan wants to normalise relations with North Korea, while South Korea's relations with its neighbour were tied to the implementation of the nuclear pact.
Inter-Korean talks ended Friday without agreement because of the nuclear impasse.
Song said China “would be also strategically benefited … by denuclearising the Korean peninsula and allowing North Korea to be a responsible member of the international community.”
China and South Korea also want to improve prickly relations with Japan over its perceived refusal to come to terms with its 20th century militaristic past, which included invasions of both nations.
Song said Sunday's meeting on the resort island of Jeju could become the basis of a multilateral security dialogue as envisaged in the February agreement.
He said the ministers agreed to meet frequently in future, with Japan hosting the next forum.
Foreign ministers from the three countries have held meetings previously on the sidelines of multilateral talks, but have never before held separate scheduled trilateral talks.
Seoul had said contentious issues would be shelved in Jeju and Song and Aso met in apparently cordial mood, before the trilateral forum.
“Since taking office last year, I have met Foreign Minister Aso seven times — more frequently than I have met my brothers,” Song said as Aso laughed.
“The weather was not good when there was a previous South Korea-Japan foreign ministerial meeting here, but it will be fine (today) because I ordered good weather.”
At their last meeting on March 31 Song chided Japanese leaders for apparently glossing over wartime excesses.
On Sunday he and Aso agreed to hold an eighth round of talks on defining their disputed sea borders in Seoul from June 17-18. The two sides each claim a group of islands known as Dokdo in Korea and Takeshima in Japan.
The ministers also decided to launch a second round of a joint historical research project, starting in Tokyo on June 23.
At the subsequent trilateral the ministers agreed on a youth and media exchange programme and a joint cultural festival.
They said they would evaluate a joint private research project into a possible three-nation free trade zone.
They pledged to tackle environmental issues such as “yellow dust” originating from arid lands in China and ocean waste, and push for talks on developing alternative clean energy technology.
Attempts will be made to set up a shuttle flight between Seoul, Tokyo and Shanghai.
