Five middle powers call for denuclearization of N. Korea

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, left, shakes hands with her South Korean counterpart Yun Byung-se during their meeting at the Foreign Ministry in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, May 21, 2015. (Kim Hong-Ji/Pool Photo via AP)

SEOUL, May 22 (Yonhap) — Five middle-power countries were united Friday in calling for a breakthrough in efforts to denuclearize North Korea, similar to a recent Iranian nuclear deal.

The foreign ministers of South Korea, Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey, and Australia held a group meeting, the fifth of its kind, in Seoul.

In 2013, they launched a cross-regional caucus dubbed “MIKTA,” from the initials of their English names.

“As observed in the process of the negotiations regarding the Iranian nuclear program, the ministers hoped that substantial progress in the DPRK’s denuclearization can be achieved through cooperation among relevant parties,” they said in a joint communique. The DPRK is the acronym for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The ministers “deeply appreciated” Seoul’s campaign to lay the groundwork for peaceful unification through dialogue with Pyongyang, according to the four-page statement.

They “expressed the view that unification will bring the resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue and ultimately contribute to the peace and prosperity of the Korean Peninsula and the world,” it added.

The participants also agreed to promote cooperation on other global issues such as cybersecurity and climate change, it said.

They noted the launch of MIKTA’s official website, www.mikta.org, aimed at sharing more information.

In a bid to keep the political momentum, the ministers agreed to consider holding a MIKTA leaders’ meeting “at an appropriate time within this year,” read the document.

South Korea played a key role in forming the group. It stated that MIKTA is a gathering of “middle-power nations that share core values of democracy and a free market economy and have the willingness and capability to contribute to the international community’s development.”

The five are members of the G-20, the group of 20 major economies, but they do not belong to G-7 or BRICs, two other groupings of major and emerging global economies.

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