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North and South Korean top diplomats meet

SEOUL — The foreign ministers of North and South Korea met briefly Saturday on the sidelines of a regional security meeting in Indonesia, a day after discussions between nuclear negotiators for the two countries raised hopes of a breakthrough in stalled disarmament talks.

South Korea’s Kim Sung-hwan and the North’s Pak Ui Chun walked together and chatted Saturday morning on the Indonesian island of Bali, the site of the ASEAN Regional Forum meeting. An Associated Press photographer saw the two diplomats together.

It was the first meeting between foreign ministers of the two countries since July 2008 when the same forum was held in Singapore, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency.

The meeting followed one held Friday between the nuclear negotiators for the two countries. That breakthrough raised hopes that stalled six-nation negotiations on the North’s nuclear programs could possibly restart and that tense relations between the rival nations could ease.