North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun and U.S. State Secretary Colin Powell have met on the sidelines of an Asian security forum in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Their 20-minute talks ... the highest level contact since 2002 ... focused on their standoff over North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions.

Paek reiterated the North's previous commitment to seeking a peaceful resolution through dialogue in order to denuclearize the Korean peninsula. He also urged the U.S. to abandon what he called hostile policies toward the North, while stressing 'simultaneous action' as the only way to resolve the 20-month-long nuclear impasse.

North Korea has offered to freeze its nuclear weapons program in return for simultaneous provision of economic compensation.

Meanwhile, Powell told Paek that there is an opportunity for "concrete progress" toward the goal of complete nuclear dismantlement.

State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, said the two sides discussed the proposals that each side put forth at the six-party nuclear talks held last week in China.

Boucher described the foreign ministers' talks as being useful to help clarify each side's proposal.