The UN Security Council has decided to hold discussions next week with the aim of working out a response to South Korea's complaint that North Korea attacked and sank one of its navy ships in March, the council president said Thursday, DPA reported.
Mexican UN Ambassador Claude Heller said private discussions he has had so far with the council's 15 members have been "very fruitful."
"I am in the process of bilateral consultations on Korea so that we will be able to start next week the process of exchanging ideas among the council members ... in order to look for a response," Heller told reporters.
Bilateral consultations are one-on-one discussions but a council meeting would involve all the members. Heller did not give the date for the meeting, and added that the South Korean government is entitled to attend as a plaintiff.
South Korea lodged the complaint last week to the council, calling for measures that would be "appropriate to the gravity of the situation" caused by the alleged North Korean torpedoing of the naval ship Cheonan in March, which killed 46 sailors.
The Pyongyang government has reacted strongly against the accusation, branding it a "fabrication" and warning of a new conflict on the Korean Peninsula.