BEIJING (Kyodo) — Senior foreign ministry officials from Japan and China agreed in their talks Wednesday that the two countries should strengthen cooperation following North Korea’s third nuclear test last week, Japanese diplomat Shinsuke Sugiyama told reporters.
Sugiyama said he told Wu Dawei, China’s special representative for Korean Peninsula affairs, at the meeting that the nuclear test “violated United Nations Security Council resolutions and is not acceptable” and expressed hopes that China takes a leadership role in handling the North Korean issue.
Sugiyama, director general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, said Wu told him that he basically shares the view.
At the talks, Sugiyama is believed to have sought Chinese cooperation in leading the Security Council to impose additional sanctions on North Korea. China is one of the five permanent members on the council.
China has expressed strong opposition to the nuclear test and voices are growing within the country calling for reviewing Beijing’s food and energy aid to Pyongyang.
Beijing officials, however, are reluctant to deliver rigorous sanctions that may shake the bedrock of the North Korean regime.
According to Sugiyama, the two diplomats confirmed the importance of accelerating diplomatic efforts such as the six-party talks on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula but did not go any further than that.
On North Korea’s past abductions of Japanese nationals, Sugiyama reiterated Japan’s request for cooperation from China in making sure the North fully account for all the abductees.
Besides issues surrounding North Korea, Sugiyama is thought to have exchanged views with Chinese Foreign Ministry officials about Japan-China relations that have been soured by a spat over the Senkaku Islands administered by Japan but claimed by China.
Sugiyama did not disclose who were his counterparts in the talks on this issue.
Kyodo News, February 21, 2013
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