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updated 10:20 AM UTC, Dec 13, 2023

China Urges Six-Party Talks As UN Slams Sanctions On North Korea

Global Times: China stressed Sunday that sanctions on North Korea and the resumption of six-party talks are both important and should not be neglected, following the unanimous approval by the UN Security Council on Saturday of a sanctions resolution on the North Korea on its most recent missile tests.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Sunday called on North Korea, the US and South Korea to exercise restraint and make the right choices, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

They should be accountable to their people and regional peace in making such choices, Wang noted.  He made the remarks during his meeting with his North Korean counterpart Ri Yong-ho on the sidelines of foreign ministers’ meetings in the Philippines.

Wang also told Ri that North Korea should stay calm on the UN new resolution, and avoid conducting further nuclear or missile tests.

The UN Security Council on Saturday, unanimously approved Resolution 2371 which imposed new sanctions on North Korea for ignoring previous resolutions and its recent intercontinental ballistic missile tests, Xinhua reported.

The resolution would ban North Korean exports of coal, iron, iron ore, lead, lead ore and seafood. It would also prohibit countries from increasing the current numbers of North Korean laborers working abroad, ban new joint ventures with North Korea and any new investment in current joint ventures, Reuters reported.

“It usually takes more time for the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution, but this time the UN Security Council reached the agreement in just a week. And the sanctions are much stricter, which proves that the international community shares a higher consensus than before in opposing nuclear proliferation in the peninsula,” said Wang Junsheng, a research fellow on East Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Both sanctions against North Korean nuclear and missile programs and resumption of six-party talks are important, and neither should be neglected, Wang said on Sunday.

He added there are two major components in the resolution – one, to respond to North Korea’s constant missile tests, which have violated UN Security Council resolutions, to effectively check North Korea’s nuclear and missile development programs, and two, to restart six-party talks.

The most difficult part in restarting six-party talks is building a supervisory mechanism under the UN Security Council, Lü Chao, a Korea expert at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Sunday.

While the six-party talks failed to achieve a peaceful solution, both North Korea and the US have violated the agreement, Lü said.

The six-party talks, which involve North Korea, South Korea, the US, China, Russia and Japan, started in Beijing in August 2003, but have stalled since December 2008.

North Korea dropped out of the talks in April 2009.

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