China to Press For North Korea Nuclear Talks

NTI: China to Press For North Korea Nuclear Talks
China intends to push for restarting the long-stalled six-nation negotiations aimed at shuttering North Korea's nuclear program, Beijing's top diplomat said today (see GSN, Feb. 22).

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi offered his comments ahead of a meeting in Seoul with his South Korean counterpart, Kim Sung-hwan, Agence France-Presse reported.

Beijing wants the nuclear talks to begin soon "to realize denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and normalization of relations between related countries," Yang said.

China hosts the talks, which also involve Japan, Russia, the United States and both Koreas. The diplomatic aid-for-denuclearization effort over several years made some progress in closing North Korea's atomic operations. However, the talks were last held in December 2008; Pyongyang has since conducted its second nuclear test and unveiled a previously secret uranium enrichment plant. It is also suspected of sinking a South Korean warship last March and in November shelled the South's Yeonpyeong Island.

China is the North's leading ally. It did not criticize Pyongyang for the March and November incidents, to Seoul's aggravation, and is reportedly prepared to block the release of a U.N. report indicating that North Korean uranium enrichment operations are likely to be more expansive than revealed.

The six-party talks are the correct venue for discussing the enrichment matter, according to Beijing. Seoul, Tokyo and Washington, though, have indicated that the negotiations can resume only when North Korea demonstrates sincerity on the nuclear issue and improves relations with its neighbor (Agence France-Presse/Spacedaily, Feb. 23).

Yang and Kim did note concerns about the North Korean uranium enrichment effort, the Associated Press quoted a South Korean Foreign Ministry official as saying. The two diplomats pledged to remain in close contact on addressing the matter, the source added.

Uranium enrichment would give the regime a second route to producing nuclear-weapon material, alongside the program believed to have provided the North with six weapons worth of plutonium.

Yang also met with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. Beijing's envoy said his nation wants to see better inter-Korean relations and remains formally opposed to Pyongyang's atomic efforts, according to a statement from the president's office. Lee, in turn, requested that China be a key player in closing North Korea's nuclear sector