Need for Korea dialogue stressed

BALI, Indonesia, July 21 (UPI) -- Inter-Korean relations must improve prior to restarting the six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear disarmament, South Korea and China agreed Thursday.

South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hawan and his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, meeting in Bali, Indonesia, expressed their stance on progress in the relations between two Koreas as a perquisite for the wider talks, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

The two were in Bali for the meeting of the foreign ministers of the Association of South East Asian Nations.

"During the talks, the Chinese minister expressed his support for the principle that inter-Korean dialogue on a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula should be prioritized before the resumption of the six-party talks," South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Byung-jae was quoted as saying.

Cho said the Chinese foreign minister planned to hold a bilateral meeting with his North Korean counterpart Friday in Bali.

The North Korean denuclearization talks among the United States, Russia, China, Japan and the two Koreas have remained stalled since December 2008 after Pyongyang pulled out to protest U.N. sanctions over its nuclear tests.

South Korea wants the North to demonstrate its denuclearization commitment and take responsibility for last year's torpedoing of a South Korean warship and the shelling of a South Korean, which together cost 50 South Korean lives.