Japan's foreign minister said Saturday that inter-Korean dialogue should be the starting point for talks with North Korea and urged the communist nation to take specific steps demonstrating its commitment to denuclearize.

"For dialogue with North Korea, the North should demonstrate through specific action its sincere willingness to carry out its own commitment to denuclearization," Seiji Maehara told a joint news conference after talks with South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan.

"Dialogue with North Korea should first be held between the South and the North," he said.

Maehara's one-day visit to Seoul came after he expressed an willingness to hold direct talks with North Korea this year to tackle Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs and past abductions of Japanese nationals. Pyongyang welcomed the suggestion.

The move, however, had drawn concerns that it might send a wrong message to the North's provocative regime that is refusing to take responsibility for its deadly shelling of a South Korean island in November as well as its March sinking of a South Korean warship.

His remarks on Saturday dispelled such concern.    

Still, Maehara said that Japan wants to "resolve all issues between Japan and North Korea through dialogue" and that Tokyo-Pyongyang talks are not necessarily bound by six-party nuclear negotiations, suggesting that Tokyo would seek direct talks if the conditions are right.

"Japan-North Korea talks should take place under appropriate circumstances, with moves of six-party talks taken into consideration," Maehara said. He urged the North to show a "forward-looking and sincere attitude" to resolve the abduction issue as well as concerns about the North's nuclear and missile programs.

South Korea, the United States and Japan have taken a united stance on North Korea, urging the communist nation to first improve relations with South Korea and demonstrate its denuclearization commitment through action if six-party talks, suspended since December 2008, are to reopen.

Maehara said that Japan is firmly committed to the trilateral cooperation on North Korea.

Kim said he and Maehara reaffirmed that North Korea's uranium enrichment program is a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions as well as Pyongyang's own 2005 pledge to end its nuclear program and that the two countries should respond sternly to the move.

In November, North Korea confirmed long-running suspicions that it has been seeking a uranium-based program to make nuclear bombs with revelations of an uranium enrichment plant at its main nuclear complex in Yongbyon. Uranium, if highly enriched, can be weapons-grade, giving Pyongyang a second way of building atomic bombs.

Relations between South Korea and Japan are in good shape after Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan offered a renewed apology in August for Tokyo's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, promising to return centuries-old royal Korean books to Seoul and take other steps backing up the apology.

Kim and Maehara told the conference that they agreed to work closely together to further move the bilateral relations forward and to realize the return of royal archives and other projects at an early date.

The two also discussed Japan's calls for greater security cooperation and a free trade agreement with South Korea.   

Maehara asked for an early resumption of free trade talks and the two sides agreed to keep working together to create the right atmosphere for it, Kim said.

Kim also said that the two sides agreed to seek security cooperation in a way that contributes to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and the international community.

Earlier this week, Tokyo's defense minister visited Seoul for talks with his counterpart about forging what would be the first military cooperation agreement between the two sides.

Maehara had originally planned to make a two-day visit to South Korea, but cut it short because of a cabinet reshuffle undertaken on Friday. Maehara was scheduled to pay a courtesy call to South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and meet with Unification Minister Hyun In-taek later in the day. (Yonhap News)