Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon of South Korea has stressed the need to resolve North Korea's nuclear issue during talks on Thursday with his Northern counterpart, Paek Nam-sun. Minister Ban asserted that the top priority of North Korea, which is aiming to recieve economic aid, lies in resolving the long-standing nuclear issue. He also proposed to Minister Paek to install a standing diplomatic channel between the foreign ministries of the two Koreas, citing the existence of a similar hotline in operation at the unificiation ministry. During their talks, Ban and Paek reportedly focused on the outcome and significance of the third round of six-way atomic negotiations that ended on Saturday in Beijing. They also sought ways to reap substantial results in a future round of the six-nation dialogue on settling the North's nuclear standoff. The two high-ranking officials also exchanged views on the scope and corresponding measures of the North's prospective nuclear freeze, an issue on which the two Koreas, the U.S. and Japan expressed widely diverging views in the previous talks. Thursday's meeting is only the second time foreign ministers of the two Koreas have met since they held talks back in 2000, following the historic June 15 inter-Korean joint declaration. The foreign ministers' meeting took place on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum in Indonesia.