Japan tells China now is not time for 6-way talks on N. Korea

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TOKYO, Nov. 30 Kyodo -
Japan told China on Tuesday that it is not appropriate to hold six-party talks
on North Korea's nuclear programs at the present moment in the wake of the
North's deadly shelling of a South Korean island near the two Koreas' contested
western sea border last week, a Japanese nuclear envoy said.
After meeting in Beijing with Wu Dawei, China's special representative for
Korean Peninsula affairs, Akitaka Saiki, director general of the Japanese
Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, told reporters in Tokyo,
''I said it is not appropriate to hold (a six-party meeting) at this timing.''
During the meeting, Wu sought Tokyo's support for a Chinese proposal to convene
an emergency meeting of the heads of delegations to the six-party talks aimed
at containing Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions to defuse the current tension,
according to Saiki.
Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara also expressed a negative view about
the proposed emergency meeting earlier Tuesday, saying that dialogue ''should
not be held just for the sake of talking.''
Maehara told a news conference he had instructed Saiki to convey to China
Tokyo's basic stance that progress in North Korea's denuclearization efforts
must be made before the restart of the six-way talks.
The Japanese foreign minister indicated it would be awkward to agree to the
resumption of the six-party talks following the North's disclosure of its
uranium enrichment program and its ''indiscriminate shelling '' of the
inhabited South Korean island.
But Maehara said Japan will ''keep open the door for dialogue,'' adding that he
had told Saiki to exchange views frankly with Wu to ''find a path toward
solving'' issues concerning North Korea.
Earlier Tuesday, Choe Thae Bok, an aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il,
arrived in Beijing for talks with Chinese officials, making him the first
senior North Korean official to visit China since the Nov. 23 artillery
barrage, which killed four South Koreans.
While South Korea, the United States and Japan have shown reluctance to accept
such a proposal from China, citing North Korea's provocative behavior, Beijing
has called for dialogue among regional powers in an effort to ease tensions on
the peninsula, fueled again by a major U.S.-South Korea naval exercise in the
Yellow Sea that began Sunday for a four-day run.
''Under current circumstances, it is imperative and important to return to
dialogue and negotiations as soon as possible,'' Chinese Foreign Ministry
spokesman Hong Lei was quoted as saying Tuesday by Xinhua News Agency.
''We believe all parties concerned will consider China's proposal seriously and
give a proactive response,'' Hong was quoted as saying at a news conference.
Along with Choe, a secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea's Central
Committee, Kim Yong Il, director of the party's International Department, also
arrived in Beijing aboard the same flight from Pyongyang, en route to a trip to
Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, according to the official Korean Central News
Agency.
Choe is visiting China at the invitation of Wu Bangguo, chairman of the
Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.
Japan's Foreign Minister Maehara said Saiki did not contact the North Korean
officials in Beijing.
==Kyodo
2010-12-01 00:17:28