Spain pledges joint effort with S. Korea to pressure N. Korea

SEOUL, July 25 (Yonhap) -- Spain promised unwavering cooperation in South Korea's ongoing efforts to press North Korea to discard its nuclear weapons, Seoul's foreign ministry said Monday after the two countries' senior diplomats held talks here.

Vice Foreign Minister Lim Sung-nam and his Spanish counterpart Ignacio Ybanez Rubio shared their determination to push for the "thorough implementation" of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2270, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said following the talks in Seoul.

The resolution was adopted in early March in a bid to tighten the screws on North Korea after the country conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range missile launch the following month, all in defiance of previous U.N. resolutions.

North Korea had been banned from carrying out nuclear and ballistic missile tests for some time.

"The latest South Korea-Spain policy consultation meeting provided an opportunity (for South Korea) to strengthen bilateral, as well as regional- and global-level cooperation with Spain, which is a main European Union member and the chair of the UNSC's North Korea sanctions committee," the ministry said in a statement.

During the talks, the two vice foreign ministers also agreed to expand bilateral collaboration in fields like science, culture, tourism and infrastructure building, according to the statement.

They also vowed to join hands in making inroads into foreign markets by sharing know-how in certain regional markets.

The latest meeting is Seoul's 11th policy consultation meeting, which first began in 1988.

The diplomats agreed to meet again next year under a revised framework to be renamed "strategic dialogue," the ministry also said.

pbr@yna.co.kr
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