Top diplomats of S. Korea, U.S., Japan to meet in Seoul over U.N. resolution

North Korea's envoy to the U.N. Park Gil-yon just after a U.N. Security Council's resolution imposing sanctions againt North Korea was adopted.

South Korea, the U.S. and Japan plan to hold a meeting of their top diplomats this week in Seoul to discuss ways of enforcing the U.N. Security Council's resolution over North Korea's claimed nuclear test, government officials said Monday.

Over the weekend, the U.N. Security Council unanimously voted in favor of a resolution committing the U.N. member states to take strict measures against Pyongyang under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter.

Cooperation by South Korea and China is viewed as a key to the implementation of the resolution.

"Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso will come here on Thursday afternoon," a Foreign Ministry official said, asking not to be identified. "U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is also scheduled to arrive in Seoul the same day for talks with Minister Aso and (South Korean) Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon over dinner that day."

The meeting, if held, would be the first of its kind since the three top diplomats met in New York last August, he added.

"The three-way talks are aimed to fine-tune countermeasures against North Korea's claim of a nuclear test and find ways of resuming the six-way talks (on the North Korean nuclear program)," the official said.

Ban and Aso are also to hold bilateral discussions on Friday, he added.

Secretary of State Rice is scheduled to come to Seoul via Tokyo and then make a trip to Beijing. But Rice and the Japanese minister will travel here separately, the official said.

Her trip to the region was originally intended to discuss incentives to coax North Korea into rejoining the suspended six-way talks.

As the North claimed last week to have conducted a nuclear test, however, Rice is likely to put more weight on punitive steps against the communist country.

Rice proposed the trilateral meeting with her South Korean and Japanese counterparts, and Japan wanted it to be held in Tokyo, diplomatic sources here said.

South Korea refused Japan's request as its foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon, is too busy to travel there due to ongoing preparations for his new job as U.N. secretary-general, they added.

Ban is to succeed Kofi Annan, who is retire at the end of this year.

Seoul, Oct. 16 (Yonhap News)