China urges persistence over NKorea nuke deal

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

Beijing, Mar 3: China's foreign minister on Saturday urgeddiplomatic persistence as a deadline looms for implementing the firststeps of a deal to unwind North Korea's nuclear weapons programme.

Under a breakthrough agreement signed on February. 13, North Koreaagreed to move toward nuclear disarmament in exchange for aid and theprospect of improved ties with the United States and other powers.

The deal gave Pyongyang 60 days to shut down the reactor at theheart of its nuclear ambitions and open it to internationalinspections. It also required working groups on normalising of US-NorthKorean relations and other contentious issue meet within 30 days.

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing urged the six countries thatsigned the agreement to play their part, but he also called fordiplomatic give and take.

''We hope that they will act according to the agreement,'' Li toldreporters on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the ChinesePeople's Political Consultative Conference.

''Of course, it isn't always easy and difficulties will come up,''he said, adding that problems should be dealt with through ''diplomaticmeans''.

The disarmament agreement reached at talks in Beijing, broughttogether the two Koreas, China, the United States, Japan and Russia.

At the time of the deal, the chief US envoy Christopher Hill said deadlines should be strictly obeyed.

Hill also said Washington would resolve within 30 days a disputeover frozen North Korean bank accounts in Macau. The US had said thatPyongyang used a Macau bank as a conduit for illicit earnings.

US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte arrived in Beijingtoday for talks with Chinese officials that will cover North Korea andother security issues. US and North Korean officials will meet in NewYork next week for preliminary discussions on normalising of relationsafter decades of confrontation.


Reuters

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