CHINA ORDERS NORTH KOREA TO HALT TESTS
Tyrant’s only ally calls for talks
NORTH Korea have been urged to stop provoking “the international community’s goodwill” with missile launches.
China’s foreign minister Wang Yi met North Korean foreign minister Ri Yong Ho on the sidelines of a regional meeting, hours after the UN Security Council approved tough new sanctions to punish Pyongyang for its escalating nuclear and missile programmes.
Wang said the two had intensive talks during which China urged North Korea to maintain calm.
He said he told Ri: “Do not violate the UN decision or provoke the international community’s goodwill by conducting missile launches or nuclear tests.”
Wang also urged the US and South Korean leader Kim Jong-un “to stop increasing tensions” and said all sides should return to negotiations.
Yesterday, he appealed to other governments to resume the six-nation talks involving the North, the US, Russia, Japan and South Korea, as well as Beijing.
He said: “The aim is to seek a solution through negotiations until the denuclearisation of the peninsula and the stability of the peninsula are achieved.”
North Korea pulled out of the talks in 2009 to protest against international condemnation of a longrange rocket launch.
Just last month, it testlaunched two intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the US mainland.
US secretary of state Rex Tillerson has said Washington wants to talk to North Korea but thinks discussions would not be productive if Pyongyang comes with the intention of maintaining its nuclear weapons.
Wang’s statement repeated Beijing’s proposal for a halt to North Korean nuclear development and to joint US-South Korean military exercises.