China appreciates North Korea’s ”important efforts” to ease tension on the Korean peninsula, Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the North’s Foreign Minister on Tuesday, hours after he called on all sides to stay focussed on talks. In late March, Beijing vowed to uphold its friendship with its neighbour and won a pledge from Mr. Kim to denuclearise the peninsula during a meeting with President Xi Jinping.
China’s Foreign Ministry gave only hours notice that Mr. Wang would meet North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho. Mr. Wang told Mr. Ri that Mr. Xi and Mr. Kim had reached an important consensus on achieving a peaceful resolution to the nuclear issue during the th latter’s visit to Beijing.
“China appreciates North Korea’s position working toward denuclearisation of the peninsula and its important efforts to ease the situation on the peninsula, and supports meetings between the leaders of the North and South and between the North and the United States,” Mr. Wang said.
The Ministry cited Mr. Ri as saying that North Korea would ”maintain close strategic communications” with China on peninsula-related issues, and that the Kim-Xi meeting was an ”important juncture” in the development of bilateral relations.
North Korea’s official news agency KCNA had said that a delegation headed by Mr. Ri left on Tuesday to meet other Foreign Ministers in Azerbaijan and to visit Russia, but made no mention of China.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Wang said during a joint news briefing with visiting Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis that he hoped a planned meeting in May between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump would “increase mutual understanding”.
