The foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and 17 other countries urged North Korea to fulfill its commitment to complete denuclearization during their Singapore talks last week, their chair statement showed Monday.
Singapore, this year's chair of the annual ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), published its statement summarizing the foreign ministers' meeting, which took place Saturday. The annual ARF is the sole regional forum in which the North's top diplomat participates.
"The ministers urged all concerned parties to continue working towards the realization of lasting peace and stability on a denuclearized Korean Peninsula," the statement reads.
"They also urged the DPRK to fulfill its stated commitment to complete denuclearization and its pledge to refrain from further nuclear and missile tests," it added, referring to North Korea's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The statement also noted that the ministers welcomed the April and May inter-Korean summits at the border truce village of Panmunjom and the historic June Singapore summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
At the summits, Kim committed himself to the complete denuclearization of the peninsula, which was seen by optimists as a positive sign but by skeptics as yet another vague pledge with no specifics as for how and when to achieve that goal.
The statement, in addition, said that during the ARF talks, some ministers expressed their readiness to engage in dialogue with the North to resolve other outstanding issues, including humanitarian concerns.
Contrary to the widespread expectations, the chairman's statement did not include the phrase, "complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization," apparently in reflection of Pyongyang's aversion to the term. (yonhap)