More diplomats are arriving in Singapore today for the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting.<br />This morning, North Korea's foreign minister, Ri Yong-ho, also arrived.<br />We'll have more on his activities later in the day,... but in the meantime, South Korea's foreign minister Kang Kyung-wha continued holding bilateral talks on Thursday with her counterparts.<br />Our Foreign Ministry correspondent Lee Ji-won reports from Singapore. <br />Having spent the day before with her counterparts from Southeast Asia, South Korea's foreign minister Kang Kyung-wha held bilateral talks with Northeast Asian foreign ministers on Thursday. <br /><br /> Minister Kang started the day's meetings with Russia's Sergei Lavrov in the late afternoon.<br />Unlike what many had expected, they did not focus on North Korea's denuclearization, but more on how the two Koreas and Russia can cooperate on economic issues.<br /> But noting how not much progress can be made due to international sanctions on North Korea, the two diplomats simply reviewed the joint research on gas and railway projects. <br />Minister Kang then had talks with Japanese foreign minister Taro Kono.<br /> The two once again agreed that economic sanctions on North Korea must remain in place until concrete steps are taken by Pyongyang. <br />The two also exchanged views on bilateral issues, including Japan's sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II.<br /> Minister Kang explained that the South Korean government had recently allocated a budget to replace Tokyo's roughly 9 million U.S. dollar fund for the sex slavery victims, and minister Kono requested that South Korea "handle the matter well", but did not further elaborate. <br /><br /> Kang's meeting with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi,... was postponed to Friday due to a delay in the Chinese side's schedule. <br />Wang, during a press conference late Thursday, said he supports a declaration of the end of the Korean War.<br /><br /> "We don't think that any country in today's world, the United States included, wants to see war breaking out again. Thus, the declaration of the end of the [Korean] war is in keeping with the trend of our time and reflects the aspiration of people of all countries including the two countries on the Korean Peninsula."<br /><br /> Answering a reporter's question on lifting economic sanctions on Pyongyang, Wang said that it obviously needs to be reconsidered along with the progress made in Pyongyang's denuclearization. <br /><br /> South Korea's top diplomat will try to reschedule her meeting with the Chinese foreign minister for Friday, in between her other meetings with counterparts from South East Asia. Lee Ji-won, Arirang News, Singapore. <br />
