Japan FM favours need for direct dialogue with North Korea.

28/12 Tass 228

TOKYO, December 28 (Itar-Tass) - Japanese Foreign Minister Seizi
Maehara favoured the need for a direct dialogue with North Korea on
Pyongyang's nuclear programme.
The Japanese minister expressed this idea at a news conference on
Tuesday where he spoke of the main areas of work of his department next
year.
"Problems of the Korean Peninsula should be settled not only on a
multilateral basis," Maehara emphasised. "We should try to hold talks with
Pyongyang independently."
Following the shelling by the North Korean artillery of the South
Korean island of Yeonpyong on November 23, Japan as a member country of
the six-party talks actively participates in stabilising the situation in
the Korean Peninsula, but the proposal on establishing a direct dialogue
between Tokyo and Pyongyang was voiced on Tuesday for the first time.
Maehara also pointed to the need for strengthening strategic and
economic contacts with China. However, he underlined indomitability of the
Japanese side on the question of the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyutai) which
Japan regards "an inseparable part of its territories, and there is no and
cannot be any dispute with China on this point".
-0-bur/gor