 TOKYO - Foreign ministers of the five countries in stalled negotiations with North Korea plan to meet on the nuclear crisis Friday in Beijing and are asking Pyongyang to join, a Japanese newspaper said.
The report was immediately denied by Christopher Hill, the US envoy to the six-way talks, who was in Tokyo accompanying US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on a tour of the other four countries involved in the negotiations.
| "Not going to happen, and see you Friday in Beijing!" |
The Sankei Shimbun newspaper, quoting unnamed diplomatic sources, said Rice and the foreign ministers of China, Japan, Russia and South Korea planned to meet Friday in Beijing. It said top Chinese diplomat Tang Jiaxuan, who the United States says is in North Korea, was trying to persuade Pyongyang to join the talks in Beijing. If North Korea turns up for the talks, the other five nations would present North Korea with an ultimatum to completely abandon its nuclear weapons, the conservative daily said.
China declined comment on the report. “At present we have no information on this,” a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman said when asked both if Tang was in Pyongyang and if five-way talks were planned in Beijing.
US State Department spokesman Tom Casey, confirming Japanese media reports about Tang’s whereabouts, said Wednesday the Chinese official was either in Pyongyang or on his way there. “My understanding is that his trip would be part of Chinese efforts to convince the North Koreans to comply with (UN) Resolution 1718, as well as the other relevant Security Council measures that are out there,” Casey said. |