China's chief nuclear negotiator wrapped up a five-day visit to North
Korea on Friday, state media announced - a mission reportedly focused
on bringing Pyongyang back to disarmament talks.
Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, who had arrived in the North
Korean capital Monday, left Friday after a series of meetings with top
officials, China's Xinhua news agency and the North's Korean Central
News Agency reported.
Wu met with his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye Gwan as
well as Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun on the "regional situation," the
agencies reported.
China has hosted the six-party negotiations aimed at ending
Pyongyang's nuclear drive since they began in 2003. South Korea, the
U.S., Russia and Japan are also involved in the talks.
North Korea quit the forum in protest at the U.N. Security
Council's condemnation of its rocket launch in April. Its second
nuclear test in May sparked tougher enforcement of U.N. sanctions.
In signs of a possible easing of tensions, former U.S.
President Bill Clinton went to Pyongyang this month to meet leader Kim
Jong Il, winning a pardon for two jailed U.S. journalists.
North Korean diplomats met this week with New Mexico Gov.
Bill Richardson, a veteran of talks with Pyongyang in the 1990s, who
said they indicated they wanted a "new dialogue" with Washington on the
nuclear issue.
Pyongyang is seeking direct talks with the U.S. Washington
says this is possible, but only alongside the six-party negotiations.
The North sent a high-level delegation to South Korea for
the funeral of former president Kim Dae-jung and said it would lift
tough restrictions on border crossings, in further indications of a
thaw in icy ties with Seoul.