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Hu Jintao calls on Pyongyang to give up on nuclear ambitions
by Joseph Yun Li-sun
Meeting the Prime Minister of North Korea, the Chinese president says that Beijing "supports the efforts for peace", but warns, "The solution to the problems comes from peace, and this can only be achieved through denuclearization."
Beijing (AsiaNews) - China will support North Korea, but only if it is truly committed détente on the peninsula and the path towards a gradual denuclearization. This is the ultimatum delivered today by Chinese President Hu Jintao to North Korean Prime Minister Choe Yong-rim, who probably went to Beijing to seek humanitarian aid.
Hu said the Chinese side of the bilateral dialogue supports, "the active engagement of North Korea in detente on the Korean Peninsula and improvement in the regional environment, and is convinced that the DPRK could use the current favourable opportunity to promote further progress in the right direction".
Speaking to Choe - a permanent member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the North Korean Workers' Party and Prime Minister of the Cabinet - Hu however specified that the peaceful solution to the problems of the Korean Peninsula "will result through dialogue and negotiations, the realization of denuclearization and the maintenance of peace and stability. "These objectives, he concluded, "correspond to the common interests of both parties, and are also the common wish of the international community."
Choe said that "the realization of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the maintenance of peace and stability is the consistent stand of the DPRK, which is advancing the restoration of six-party talks without conditions." A radical change of course compared to the bombing ordered six months ago.