US, South Korea and Japan restate push for North Korea to give up nuclear arms

The United States, South Korea and Japan have again said they want North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons entirely, even as Pyongyang keeps refusing to disarm.

The three countries' top diplomats met on Friday in Atlanta, in the US state of Georgia, on the sidelines of a Group of 20 (G20) gathering, according to the US State Department.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat with South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun and Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi. According to the State Department, the three restated their firm support for a nuclear-free North Korea.

They also promised to enforce UN Security Council resolutions in full. Those resolutions include a ban on helping to fund North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes.

Why it matters beyond Asia

North Korea has written its status as a nuclear-armed state into law and calls its arsenal permanent and beyond reversal. It has kept building despite years of UN sanctions.

Russia and China are seen as backers of Pyongyang, which makes the sanctions harder to enforce. A nuclear-armed North Korea keeps tension high in East Asia, a region that matters to Nigeria through trade, shipping and fuel prices.

Attention is now on a possible meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at next month's APEC summit in China. Trump has repeatedly invited Pyongyang to talks and has scaled back joint military drills with South Korea.

Last year he departed from long-standing US policy by describing North Korea as already "sort of a nuclear power", and said he was "100 percent" open to a meeting. Pyongyang did not respond.

Analysts and South Korea's spy agency suggest Kim may have passed on his position on possible talks with Trump to Beijing during a recent trip to Dandong, a Chinese city near the border.

South Korea's President Lee Jae Myung, who has offered Pyongyang talks without conditions, suggested in September that Washington push for a freeze of the nuclear programme rather than its immediate removal, in exchange for easing sanctions. Critics say that would quietly accept North Korea as a nuclear state while giving it relief without disarming.

Analysts also point to China, noting that denuclearisation was left out of statements after Kim met Chinese President Xi Jinping in June.

On Saturday, Pyongyang rejected a joint statement by countries monitoring sanctions against it. It said the "stereotyped sanctions racket of the US and the West can neither influence the position of the DPRK (North Korea) as a nuclear weapons state".

What happens next

All eyes are on the APEC summit in China next month, where a Trump-Kim meeting could take place.