North Korea has expressed willingness to rejoin six-party talks on its nuclear program, its ally China said Wednesday.
Pyongyang was ready to “participate in talks of any form including the six-party talks and hopes to peacefully solve the nuclear program through negotiations,” China’s foreign ministry said in a statement, citing remarks by Kim Kye-Gwan, the regime’s veteran negotiator, during a meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing.
Kim’s statement follows similar comments made by Choe Ryong-Hae, a close confidant of the young leader Kim Jong-Un, during a visit to the Chinese capital where he met President Xi Jinping.
Resuming the talks would mark a turnaround for the regime after weeks of blistering rhetoric and threats of a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula.
The United States, Japan and South Korea – allies who form one half of the six-way talks and have-long pressured China to rein in the North – insisted that Pyongyang take significant actions instead of mere words, reports AFP.
“We will judge the DPRK by its actions, not its words,” the allies said in a statement after their envoys on North Korea met in Washington.
