BEIJING — China’s Foreign Ministry said yesterday it will hold a strategic dialogue with North Korea this week following Pyongyang’s surprise offer of new talks with the United States.
Vice-Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui will meet North Korean First Vice-Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan tomorrow in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters.
“China has been paying close attention to developments on the peninsula, and has been actively working towards the early resumption of dialogue and negotiation by all sides,” Ms Hua said, referring to long-stalled six-nation nuclear disarmament talks hosted by China that includes South Korea, Japan, Russia, the US and North Korea.
North Korea surprised many when the National Defense Commission headed by its leader Kim Jong Un on Sunday proposed “senior-level” talks with the US to ease tensions and negotiate a formal treaty to end the Korean War, which ended only with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
The Obama administration said it was receptive to the proposal, but wants “credible negotiations” that will lead to a nuclear-free North.
The offer came just days after Pyongyang abruptly cancelled planned official talks with Seoul, the first high-level talks between North and South Korean officials in years. The North blamed the South for scuttling discussions that sought to mend estranged ties between the rival Koreas.
South Korea said yesterday it stood with the US in urging Pyongyang to take action towards scrapping its nuclear weapons to show it was sincere about seeking dialogue with Washington. “A sincere attitude and specific actions in regards to denuclearisation is critical,” said South Korea’s Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung Suk, according to Yonhap News Agency.
Tensions spiked this year over Pyongyang’s long-range rocket launch and February nuclear test. The moves angered China, the North’s most important ally and biggest source of trade and aid, prompting a visit last month to Beijing by a top North Korean envoy who stated that Pyongyang was willing to take steps to return to talks.
The offer is expected to be discussed in meetings in Washington this week involving US, Japanese and South Korean officials. Agencies
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