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S. Korea, U.S., Japan to hold high-level talks on N. Korea

Top diplomats from South Korea, the United States and Japan will hold three-way talks in Tokyo this weekend to coordinate their response to North Korea's latest nuclear test, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

Last week, North Korea claimed to have successfully conducted its first test of a hydrogen bomb, drastically raising tensions in the region to a new high.

Seoul, Washington and Tokyo in particular have called for strong punishments for Pyongyang as the U.N. Security Council has set out to adopt a new sanctions resolution against the communist regime. China, the only power capable of exerting pressure on the North, has shown an ambivalent attitude in apparent consideration of its alliance with Pyongyang and the potential damage to its national interests if North Korea were to collapse.

The three-way meeting, which had been planned for this month even before the North's test, will be held Saturday between South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Lim Sung-nam, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Akitaka Saiki. It will be the second such meeting after the first round in Washington in April 2015.

The officials will hold “in-depth policy talks” on the North Korean nuclear issue and other major regional and global issues, according to the ministry.

Seoul has also been pushing for separate bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the three-way talks, it added in a press release.

Although North Korea will be high on the agenda, the three sides are expected to discuss a wide range of trilateral cooperation issues, as the meeting comes shortly after Seoul and Tokyo struck a landmark agreement in December to resolve their dispute over Japan's sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II.

Washington has sought to strengthen trilateral ties with its two East Asian allies in part to keep a rising China in check, but those efforts have often been hampered by historical rows between Seoul and Tokyo.

Meanwhile, the three countries' top nuclear envoys are scheduled to meet in Seoul on Wednesday. The ministry said it expects the vice ministers in Tokyo to discuss trilateral cooperation measures at a higher level.

South Korea's top nuclear envoy, Hwang Joon-kook, will fly to Beijing Thursday for talks with his Chinese counterpart, Wu Dawei, while talks are still underway to arrange a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Igor Morgulov.

South Korea, the U.S., Japan, China and Russia are members of the six-party talks aimed at dismantling North Korea's nuclear weapons program. The negotiations have broken down since their last session in late 2008. (Yonhap)