Washington, Seoul, Tokyo meet in US after Hanoi Summit

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ANKARA (AA) - Top diplomats from the U.S., South Korea and Japan met in a "working lunch" in Washington to discuss the outcome of a failed summit between the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea, media reports said Thursday.

U.S. envoy on North Korea Stephen Biegun met Seoul's representative Lee Do-hoon and the envoy of Tokyo Kenji Kanasugi on Wednesday in the side's first meeting since last week's Hanoi summit amid new evidence that Pyongyang is rebuilding a rocket launch site.

Beigun held separate meetings with the Japanese and South Korean officials, before the lunch between all three parties. While both are close allies of Washington, relations between Seoul and Tokyo are often tense, with official meetings held only rarely.

The South Korean foreign ministry said in a statement after the talks that it reached an agreement with the U.S. to continue close consultations on North Korea, Seoul-based Yonhap news agency reported.

It said the two sides agreed the current situation was a "very sensitive period for progress in North Korea-U.S. dialogue."

Yonhap said that during the Washington session, Biegun briefed Lee in detail on what happened during the summit before discussing "the next steps."

A summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un planned on Feb. 27-28 in Hanoi, Vietnam, had ended early without any consensus on denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.

The ministry underlined that the two allies had "strong partnerships" over the North Korean issue and agreed to maintain consultations.

The emergency meeting comes amid reports that North Korea was allegedly "restoring an ancillary building" of one of its long-range missile launch sites which was partially disassembled last year.

North Korea insists that partial lifting of UN sanctions on Pyongyang will boost the trust for complete denuclearization of Korean peninsula.