, we will not even pay 1 yen. We deliver this as our message," Aso said in a speech in Fukuoka Prefecture. He added that Japan is ready to maintain economic sanctions on Pyongyang, including the ban on port calls by the North Korean ferry Mangyongbong-92.
The bilateral meeting in Hanoi is one of the five working groups that participants of the six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear programs agreed to set up last month.
Among the agreements reached in the multilateral talks in Beijing was that North Korea would receive economic, energy and humanitarian aid equivalent to up to 1 million tons of fuel oil from other parties during the initial action phase and the next phase of disabling all existing nuclear facilities.
Despite the six-way deal, Japan has said it will not directly participate in providing fuel oil until the abduction matter is closed. North Korea says the issue has already been resolved.
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