SEOUL– South Korea’s top nuclear envoy held phone talks with his Chinese counterpart Friday and called for Beijing’s “constructive” role to resolve the North’s nuclear issue, according to Seoul’s foreign ministry.
Noh Kyu-duk, special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, and China’s Liu Xiaoming shared their assessments on the situation surrounding the Korean Peninsula and agreed to continue close cooperation to keep it under control, the ministry said.
“Noh stressed the need to continue diplomatic efforts while strengthening communications with relevant countries to fundamentally resolve North Korea’s nuclear issue, and called for China’s constructive role to promptly resume dialogue with the North,” the ministry said in a press release.
The two sides agreed to hold face-to-face talks at an early date and continue cooperation, it added.
The phone talks came days after top diplomats of South Korea, the United States and Japan gathered in Hawaii for trilateral talks on North Korea and urged the reclusive state to return to dialogue.
The North has been recently upping the ante with a record seven missile tests in January and even hinted at the possibility of breaking its yearslong moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile testing amid an impasse in nuclear negotiations with the U.S.
Source: Yonhap News Agency