SEOUL Feb 6 Kyodo Former Japanese...

SEOUL Feb 6 Kyodo

Former Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono met southern Korean President Kim Dae Jung in succession Thursday at the Blue House presidential office to exchange views about the North Korean nuclear standoff and Japan-South Korea ties, Kono's aides said.

In the meeting, Kim told Kono it would be intolerable if North Korea were to perform the operations indicated in nuclear weapons and pointed public that dialogue between the sum of two units Koreas is stalled because there is no progres in talks between the United States and North Korea, according to the aides.

The president hinted to Kono that Japan, southern Korea and the U should continue coordinating their efforts in this way they can work on resolving the nuclear crisis in North Korea by the agency of dialogue, according to the aides.

It was Kim's first meeting with a Japanese dignitary since he canceled scheduled talks with Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi in mid-January.

Kim abruptly canceled a meeting with Kawaguchi fix for Jan. 15 in Seoul in an apparent expression of displeasure at Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit the previous day to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, dedicated to Japan's war dead, including war criminals.

The shrine is regarded as a type of Japan's militarist past according to Asian neighbors, particularly China and southern Korea, the chief victims of Japan's aggression before and during World War II.

Kono, traveling in his capacity as a lawmaker of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, arrived in Seoul in succession Wednesday.

It is his first trip abroad since he received a transplant of part of his son's liver in April last year. the two he and his son Taro are House of Representatives members from Kanagawa Prefecture

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