Beijing: Chinese President Xi Jinping offered North Korean leader Kim Jong Un firm backing in deadlocked nuclear talks with the United States, insisting the two sides should meet “halfway”, state media said.
Kim visited Beijing by train this week for two days of talks that reasserted China’s role in the process, and were seen as a strategy session ahead of a second summit between the North Korean leader and US President Donald Trump.
At their first meeting in Singapore in June, Kim and Trump signed a vaguely worded document with Kim pledging to work towards the “denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”.
But progress has since stalled with Pyongyang and Washington — which stations 28,500 troops in South Korea — disagreeing over what that means.
North Korea wants relief from the multiple sets of sanctions imposed on it over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes, while the US wants the measures to remain in place until it gives up its arms — something Pyongyang has made no public promise to do.
China also wants the sanctions relaxed and Xi said he “hopes that the DPRK and the United States will meet each other halfway” according to China’s state news agency Xinhua, using the initials of the North’s official name. Xi “spoke highly of the positive measures taken by the DPRK side”, it added.
North Korea has carried out six nuclear blasts and launched missiles capable of reaching the whole of the United States, but has carried out no such tests for more than a year, and blew up the entrances to a nuclear testing ground it said it no longer needed.
Pyongyang has rejected demands for what it calls its “unilateral” disarmament as “gangster-like”.
China is the North’s sole major ally and key trade partner but relations had deteriorated over Pyongyang’s nuclear activities, before warming up last year, with Kim meeting Xi three times.
Kim “raised concern” about the impasse in talks with the US, according to Pyongyang’s official KCNA news agency, which said the Chinese leader had issued a ringing endorsement of the North’s position.
“Xi Jinping said that the legitimate issues raised by the DPRK are rightful demands and that he fully agrees that the DPRK’s reasonable interests should be justly resolved,” it said.
