Beijing says China’s top nuclear envoy made trip to NKorea, discussed six-party nuclear talks

Beijing: China’s top nuclear envoy visited NKorea

SEOUL, South Korea — China’s top nuclear envoy traveled to North Korea this week to discuss the resumption of six party talks on the North’s nuclear weapons program, Beijing said Thursday.

North Korea walked away from six-nation nuclear talks last year in protest at an international condemnation of a long-range rocket launch. Prospects for restarting the talks were put into doubt after an international investigation in May blamed North Korea for torpedoing the South Korean warship Cheonan and killing 46 sailors. North Korea denies attacking the ship.

On Thursday, China’s Foreign Ministry said that its chief nuclear envoy, Wu Dawei, visited North Korea from Monday to Wednesday to discuss resuming the nuclear talks.

Wu met senior North Korean officials including Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun and top nuclear envoy Kim Kye Gwan. They discussed maintaining peace and stability on the peninsula and resuming the six-party talks, the ministry said in a statement.

The statement gave no further details. But South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported Thursday that Wu’s trip indicated Beijing wants to resolve tension over the warship sinking by restarting the six-party talks involving the two Koreas, China, the U.S., Japan and Russia.

Citing unidentified diplomatic sources in Beijing, Yonhap noted Wu’s trip came ahead of a new round of joint military drills that South Korea and the U.S. plan to stage in the Yellow Sea early next month.

China has repeatedly criticized the drills, saying they risked heightening tensions on the peninsula and ignored its objections to any foreign military exercises off its coast.

This week, South Korea and the U.S. began annual joint military drills that North Korea has called a rehearsal for invasion. That followed massive joint naval drills the allies conducted last month.

The Korean peninsula technically remains in a state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. The U.S. stations 28,500 troops in South Korea to protect its key ally.

It wasn’t clear whether Wu’s trip would help lead to the restart of the nuclear talks, as U.S., South Korean and Japanese officials have said Pyongyang must come clean on the warship sinking and express a sincere willingness to disarm before the talks can resume.

North Korea’s state media hasn’t reported on Wu’s trip.

Earlier Thursday, North Korea confirmed that it seized a South Korean fishing boat and its seven-man crew more than a week ago.

South Korea had been pushing for the release of the four South Korean and three Chinese fishermen it had said were seized along with the boat on Aug. 8, but Pyongyang had not responded or acknowledged that it had the fishermen.

The North’s Korean Central News Agency said in a dispatch that the country’s navy caught the boat illegally fishing in the communist country’s eastern exclusive economic zone. The fishermen admitted their wrongdoing during a preliminary investigation, it said.

__

Associated Press writers Sangwon Yoon in Seoul and Chi-Chi Zhang in Beijing contributed to this report.