SEOUL, South Korea Chinas top nuclear envoy traveled to North Korea this week to discuss the resumption of six party talks on the Norths nuclear weapons program, Beijing said.
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, Chinas 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.
They reached a full consensus of views on all the matters discussed, the Norths official Korean Central News Agency reported late Thursday. Neither Chinas Foreign Ministry nor KCNA gave any further details.
But South Koreas Yonhap news agency reported Thursday that Wus 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 Wus 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 wasnt clear whether Wus 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.
In Washington on Thursday, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters that there are specific things that North Korea can do to demonstrate a seriousness of purpose and to create an environment where future nuclear disarmament talks could be productive.
He wouldnt specify what those steps are, saying only that there are specific obligations that North Korea has undertaken. Obviously, we remain concerned about provocations that North Korea has made, both recently and over many months. We want to see a change in North Koreas behavior, and, should we see that change, then that would give us indications that North Koreas serious about moving ahead.
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Associated Press writers Sangwon Yoon in Seoul and Chi-Chi Zhang in Beijing and Foster Klug in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
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