Report: Chinese envoy meets North Korean officials amid int’l efforts to revive nuclear talks

Report: Chinese envoy meets North Korean officials

SEOUL, South Korea — A special Chinese envoy met North Korean officials at the start of a four-day trip to Pyongyang that is expected to focus on persuading the North to return to nuclear disarmament talks, a report said Sunday.

Wang Jiarui, head of the liaison office of China’s ruling Communist Party, got off an airport bus in Pyongyang on Saturday and shook hands with a North Korean official, according to footage aired by broadcaster APTN.

Later Saturday, Wang met senior Workers’ Party officials over a banquet and toasted to the development of bilateral ties, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported, citing North Korea’s official Korean Central Broadcasting Station.

The state radio did not elaborate on what Wang and the North Korean officials discussed during the banquet, Yonhap said. The South Korean news agency said Wang was expected to meet leader Kim Jong Il during his trip.

Yonhap and other South Korean media have reported that Wang’s trip appears aimed at persuading the North to rejoin stalled six-nation talks on dismantling its nuclear program in return for aid and other benefits.

Last year, North Korea walked out of the talks — held with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States — in anger over international condemnation of a long-range rocket launch. The country later conducted a nuclear test, test-launched a series of ballistic missiles and restarted its plutonium-producing facility, inviting widespread condemnation and tighter U.N. sanctions.

China is North Korea’s biggest trading partner, a key aid donor and a longtime ally dating to the 1950-53 Korean War. Its influence is seen as crucial in getting the North to return to the disarmament talks.

Wang met Kim during a January 2009 trip to Pyongyang, during which the North Korean leader said his country was “dedicated to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula” and wanted to move international talks forward, according to Beijing’s Xinhua News Agency.

Wang’s trip comes amid international efforts to jump-start the six-party talks, with a special U.N. envoy, B. Lynn Pascoe, stopping in Seoul over the weekend en route to North Korea.

North Korea has said its return to the six-nation talks hinges on the lifting of the international sanctions and building better relations with the U.S.

However, Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Kurt Campbell told reporters in Seoul last week that no discussion about political or economic sanctions can take place before the disarmament talks are back on.

Associated Press Writer Kwang-tae Kim contributed to this report.