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Top official to visit Pyongyang
By Hu Xiao (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-09-08 01:41

Li Changchun, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee will visit the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) from Friday to Monday, the second high-level visit between the two nations since DPRK leader Kim Jong-il's Beijing tour in April.

The news was revealed by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan at Tuesday's regular news briefing.

"During the visit, the two sides will not only aim to promoting bilateral ties, but will discuss some major regional and international issues, including the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula," said Kong.

The spokesman said China hoped all six parties taking part in talks on the nuclear standoff in the Korean Peninsula keep calm, remain flexible and continue negotiations despite the inevitable difficulties in holding the fourth round of the six-party negotiations this month as scheduled.

"There are some difficulties, but these are not difficulties which have just arisen at this moment," said Kong, adding that the goal of a nuclear-free Korean peninsula could be reached "step by step."

"I think this is not only the aspiration of people in the region but also of the international community ," he said.

Kong made the remarks amid flurries of diplomatic activity to start a new round of six-party talks involving China, DPRK, the United States, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Russia and Japan.

Japan's foreign ministry announced on Tuesday that senior officials from Japan, the ROK and the United States would meet in Tokyo late this week.

The six countries agreed at the end of the third round of the six-party nuclear talks, held in Beijing in June, to hold the fourth round of the talks before the end of September.

In a related development, Kong said the ROK side has informed China about the investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about its uranium issue.

"We hope the ROK side can co-operate with the IAEA to resolve the case," Kong said, adding that he hoped the issue would not affect the six-party talks.

An IAEA inspection team arrived in the ROK on August 29 to investigate the claim that several ROK scientists conducted uranium separation experiments in early 2000.

The IAEA will conduct an analysis of the enriched uranium they brought from the ROK to discover its elements and enrichment level. Then they will report to the IAEA board of directors whether their analysis is in accordance with the ROK government's report, local media reported.

Earlier, ROK government senior officials stressed the experiment was an academic activity that had nothing to do with nuclear weapons and that the enriched uranium was far below weapons-grade.

In response to remarks made by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the weekend on the future development of relations with China at his first media conference since he took the position in May, Kong said China attaches great importance to relations with India and would like to work with India to greatly strengthen co-operation in all areas and bring their bilateral constructive and co-operative partnership to a new level.

On the border issue left by history, the two countries should proceed from the friendship between the two countries and properly handle it, following the principles of consultations on an equal footing, mutual understanding and accommodation and mutual adjustment.

Singh said at the conference that he hoped the border dispute between the two countries will be resolved soon.

"The senior representatives of the two countries are discussing the border issue and it is my hope we can make progress in our resolution (of the issue)," Singh said.



 
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