South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon on Friday said he had briefly met his counterpart from North Korea but was skeptical about a resumption of stalled nuclear talks.
"I met (North Korean) Foreign Minister Paek Nam-Sun yesterday," Ban told journalists at a Kuala Lumpur convention center where Asia's top security forum opened. Paek arrived in Malaysia Thursday afternoon.
Ban said the encounter happened at a gathering of foreign ministers invited to meet Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the host of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum.
"There seems not much chance for North Korea to join the proposed six-way ministerial meeting (during the forum)," he added.
South Korea had joined China in leading efforts to get North Korea to rejoin the talks, which Pyongyang walked out of in November in protest at US financial sanctions.
North Korea on Friday repeated that it would shun the talks until Washington lifts the restrictions. The United States said Thursday it had "zero" plans to meet one-on-one with North Korea.
North Korea, with whom the South is still technically at war five decades after the 1950-1953 Korean conflict, caused outrage this month when it test-fired seven missiles.
