South Korea's Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon is scheduled to leave on Sunday for visits to Singapore, Malaysia and Cambodia, ministry officials said Saturday.
On the first leg of his Southeast Asian visit, Ban will fly to Singapore and hold talks with Prime Minister Lee Hsein Loong and other Singaporean political leaders on Monday to discuss bilateral pending issues, said the officials.
Ban will then fly into Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday, where he will attend a series of multilateral diplomatic talks, including the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus South Korea, Japan and China on Wednesday, ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference on Thursday and ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Ministerial Meeting on Friday.
On the sidelines of the talks, Ban will also hold a string of bilateral or multilateral meetings with his counterparts from the U.S., China and Russia to discuss diplomatic measures to force North Korea to abandon its missile program and return to the six-party talks on the North's nuclear problem, they said.
But it remains unclear whether the South Korean minister will meet with his North Korean counterpart Paek Nam-sun, who is also scheduled to attend the ASEAN gatherings, they added.
After winding up his visit to Malaysia, Ban will visit Cambodia on July 29-31 to meet with Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni, Prime Minister Hun Sen and other Cambodian political leaders.
According to wire reporters, meanwhile, China has reportedly shown a negative response to a U.S. proposal that the so-called five-way nuclear talks excluding North Korea be held in Kuala Lumpur next week.
Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing reportedly told a senior Japanese diplomat the foreign ministers of the participants in the six-party talks should consider meeting in Kuala Lumpur on the sidelines of the ARF session, an annual gathering of foreign ministers from most Pacific Rim countries. The six-party talks involve the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia.
Li was quoted by Japan's Kyodo News as telling Tsuneo Nishida, Japanese deputy foreign minister for political affairs, in Beijing that the talks should be held "by six parties," indicating his reluctance to accept a proposal to hold five-way talks if North Korea continues to boycott the six-party talks.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said in Washington Friday that the U.S. wants the five countries besides North Korea to hold a meeting next week in Kuala Lumpur to discuss how to implement a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the North for its recent missile launches.
"We certainly would like a six-party process," Hill told a Foreign Press Center press conference, noting that he will be going to Kuala Lumpur together with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"But if they (North Koreans) are not going to attend, maybe the rest of us should meet and have discussions about what we can do at five." He also stressed that the U.S. will be ready for bilateral talks with North Korea as soon as it returns to the six-way talks.
Seoul, July 22 (Yonhap News)
Foreign Minister Ban to leave for Southeast Asia Sunday |
