Seoul Opposed to Six-Party Talks

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, September 03, 2002

Seoul Opposed to Six-Party Talks

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South Korea yesterday expressed clear-cut opposition to efforts to launch six-party talks comprising the two Koreas and the four major powers surrounding the Korean peninsula, which was allegedly proposed by Japan ahead of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to DPRK.

"We know there is a movement toward a new formula composed of the United States, China, Japan and Russia, plus the two Koreas, but it is not acceptable," a senior Foreign Affairs-Trade Ministry official said.

"We have not considered the matter at all and Japanese side has yet to call on us to have consultations about it, even though it has announced Koizumi's plan to visit the North," he said.

He clarified that the idea was not feasible as South Korea and DPRK, the two main pillars of the possible six-way forum, are both strongly opposed to it.

Japanese media has continued to highlight the issue, in an apparent bid to draw attention to it prior to the envisioned visit by Koizumi to Pyongyang for summit talks with DPRK leader Kim Jong-il.

Japan has been pursuing the new security dialogue system with the goal of enhancing its influence on the Korean peninsula issue, riding on the current dialogue mood in East Asia.

But DPRK remains opposed to the idea, saying it would only complicate the security situation.

Forming a multilateral dialogue channel will result in a "blowing up" of the Korean issue into a global one, thus perpetuating national division, it said.

Japan's conservative Yomiuri Shimbun said the Japanese side had conveyed its willingness to raise the issue during the Kim-Koizumi talks and DPRK had accepted the proposal.

But other sources interpreted DPRK's alleged agreement as a gesture to include it in the agenda of the summit talks, with its stance of opposing the move remaining unchanged.

Source: Agencies

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