US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Singapore on Tuesday for six-party talks over North Korea's weapons programme that China said would push forward the process of denuclearisation. Rice is to join foreign ministers from China, Russia, Japan, and the two Koreas at the talks on Wednesday - the first such meeting since "six party" talks began in 2003.
"It's very significant because this is probably the first time the foreign ministers from the six parties are having such a meeting," China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told reporters after talks with his Japanese counterpart. "I think it will be beneficial to pushing forward the progress of the six-party talks."
China, the host of the six-party talks, said the meeting would focus on how to take the process forward into the final phase - the full dismantling of North Korea's nuclear arms programme and surrendering of fissile material in exchange for aid and diplomatic rewards.
"This is an informal meeting and of course we think it's necessary for the six foreign ministers to come together and to exchange views so as to demonstrate that the six parties have a common goal - that is the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula," said Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang.
"China's concerns are that we hope that the six parties will ... honour each other's commitments ... so that we can push the talks into the next phase," he told reporters. The meeting, on the sidelines of annual talks among Asia-Pacific nations, comes at a time when the US Bush administration is making a U-turn of its previous policy of isolating foes.
President George W. Bush famously branded North Korea as part of an "axis of evil" together with Iraq and Iran after the September 11, 2001 attacks, but the North is slowly moving away from that rogue status and Washington has begun to ease some sanctions.
Rice has sought to play down the significance of the meeting with Pyongyang's minister, telling reporters travelling with her that she did not think they were "historic, or monumental or even consequential". "This just seemed like a very good opportunity seeing as we will all be in the same place to have a kind of informal opportunity to talk about what is going on," she said.
However, she said she would use her first meeting with the North Koreans to make clear it must meet its obligations and answer questions about all aspects of its nuclear programme, including any high-enriched uranium. In late June, the North presented a long-delayed account of its nuclear weapons programme that contained information on its plutonium production.
The declaration did little to address US suspicions of a secret uranium enrichment programme, but led to a thaw in ties between the two countries, with President George W. Bush beginning a 45-day process to remove Pyongyang from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Once it is removed from the US terrorism list, the communist state will see an end to sanctions that have mostly cut it off from international banking.