A top North Korean envoy has delivered a letter from leader Kim Jong-un to Chinese President Xi Jinping and told him Pyongyang would take steps to rejoin stalled nuclear disarmament talks, in an apparent victory for Beijing’s efforts to coax its unruly ally into lowering tensions.
North Korean Vice Marshal Choe Ryong Hae’s three-day visit was seen as a fence-mending mission after Pyongyang angered Beijing with recent snubs and moves to develop its nuclear program. Choe returned to North Korea late Friday. The official China News Service said Choe delivered the handwritten letter from Kim to Xi at an afternoon meeting at the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing. It gave no details about the letter’s contents. North Korea is willing to work with all sides to “appropriately resolve the relevant questions through the six-party talks and other forms,” Choe was quoted as saying by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV. He said Pyongyang was “willing to take active measures in this regard.”
In a report released early Saturday, North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency quoted Choe as telling Xi that the alliance with China “cannot be exchanged for anything,” but didn’t make any reference to his remarks on the stalled talks or Pyongyang’s nuclear arms development.
Choe offered no details on how North Korea planned to resume the talks, according to CCTV. North Korea walked away from the six-party nuclear disarmament talks in 2009 over disagreements on how to verify steps the North was meant to take to end its nuclear programs. Foreign observers often claim that North Korea has a history of raising tensions in an attempt to push its adversaries to negotiations meant to win aid.
Since its third nuclear test, in February, North Korea has repeatedly said that any future diplomatic talks would have to recognise it as a nuclear power. That’s at odds with the basis of the six-party talks and puts Pyongyang at loggerheads with Washington, which says it won’t accept North Korea as an atomic power and demands that talks be based on past commitments by the North to abandon its nuclear programs.
Still, Choe’s remarks seem to indicate an easing of tensions between North Korea and its communist neighbor. John Delury, a professor at Yonsei University in Seoul who specialises in China and North Korea, said the fact that Kim’s envoy “is being quoted as saying that North Korea is open to China’s suggestions already is a strong signal of kiss and make up.” Earlier Friday, a top Chinese general told Choe that Beijing wanted a peaceful, denuclearised Korean Peninsula, in a reiteration of China’s established position that could also be seen as a rebuke to the North.