Leaders demand action over nuclear test

The leaders of China, Japan and South Korea expressed concern over North Korea’s nuclear test and called for “effective steps” to break a stand off in talks to de-nuclearise the Korean peninsula, a joint statement said today.

The leaders, meeting in a three-way summit in the central Philippine city of Cebu, also restated the need to fully carry out UN sanctions against Pyongyang, as well as their “commitment of the peaceful resolution of the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula through dialogue and negotiation,” the statement said.

It was issued after a one-day summit between South Korea’s President Roh Moo-hyun, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

During the hour-long meeting, they called for “concrete and effective steps” toward the full implementation of a 2005 agreement to keep the Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons.

They also noted the importance of the international community’s addressing humanitarian issues in the North. Japan has often raised that issue in regard to North Korea’s kidnapping of more than a dozen Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 80s.

Japan believes there many have been many more abductions than the 13 the North has acknowledged.

Earlier today, Roh and Wen had agreed to cooperate closely in talks aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Wen also held a meeting with Abe.

The back-to-back meetings came as officials from the US and North Korea prepare to meet again to try to resolve a financial dispute – a key sticking point in the nuclear disarmament talks.

North Korea has expressed hope to resume the nuclear talks right after holding separate financial discussions with the US in New York later this month, according to Taku Yamasaki, a lawmaker of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, who recently travelled to Pyongyang.

The hardline communist regime returned to the talks in Beijing last month - the first since its October 9 nuclear test – but no progress was made due to the dispute over the US financial restrictions on the North.

In 2005, the US blacklisted a Macau bank where North Korea had accounts, accusing it of complicity in the North’s alleged counterfeiting of 100 US dollar bills and money laundering. That led to a freezing of the North’s assets deposited at the bank worth some $24m.

The cash-strapped country has steadfastly urged the US to lift the financial restrictions, but Washington has so far showed no sign of backing down, calling it a matter of law enforcement.

The two sides failed to make any headway in previous financial talks held on the sidelines of the main nuclear talks in December. The nuclear talks include the US, two Koreas, China, Russia and Japan.