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South, North Korean FMs meet for first time in 3 years

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South and North Korean foreign ministers, Kim Sung-hwan and Pak Ui-chun, held a brief meeting on Saturday on the sidelines of an ASEAN forum in Bali, Indonesia

South and North Korean foreign ministers, Kim Sung-hwan and Pak Ui-chun, held a brief meeting on Saturday on the sidelines of an ASEAN forum in Bali, Indonesia, Yonhap said.

This was the first time that top diplomats from the two Koreas have met since an ASEAN forum in Singapore three years ago.

"Before entering a session of the ASEAN Regional Forum this morning, Minister Kim [Sung-hwan] had a brief talk with Pak [Ui-chun]," a South Korean official was quoted by Yonhap as saying.

The meeting came the day after the South and North Korean chief nuclear envoys agreed to resume stalled six-party talks over the North's nuclear program as soon as possible during their first meeting since 2008.

During the talks, South Korean chief nuclear negotiator Wi Sung-lac and his North Korean counterpart Ri Yong-ho also reaffirmed their "willingness to implement" the 2005 statement in which the North agreed to give up its nuclear program.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a meeting on Friday with his North Korean counterpart on the sidelines of the summit. "We [Russia] hail Pyongyang's readiness to resume six-party talks without any preconditions," he said.

The six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions involving the two Koreas, China, the United States, Russia and Japan came to a halt in April 2009 when North Korea walked out of negotiations to protest the United Nations' condemnation of its missile tests.

North Korea is banned from conducting nuclear or ballistic missile tests under UN Resolution 1718, adopted after Pyongyang's first nuclear test on October 9, 2006.

However, the country carried out a second nuclear test on May 25, 2009, followed by a series of short-range missile launches, and has threatened to build up its nuclear arsenal to counter what it calls hostile U.S. policies.

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