Beijing welcomes the upcoming visit to China of the U.S. Special Representative for North Korea, Stephen Began, and the opportunity to discuss the problems related to the Korean peninsula, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Heng Shuang said at a briefing on Wednesday, without providing any details of the upcoming meetings.
“China welcomes the visit of Special Representative Began and his readiness to discuss the Korean peninsula with them. It has scheduled meetings with a number of Chinese officials, and we will release all relevant information in due time”, – the diplomat said in response to a request for details of the visit.
Earlier, the State Department reported that the U.S. Special Representative for North Korea, Stephen Began, will visit China on December 19-20 to discuss North Korea. Began’s visit to China will take place after his visit to Seoul and Tokyo.
Negotiations on denuclearization between DPRK and the United States reached an impasse after the failure of the working negotiations in Sweden, when the North Korean delegation left the meeting, saying that the United States came with “empty hands”. The U.S. side, in turn, called the negotiations “good”, with a number of new creative ideas. After that, the DPRK repeatedly set an ultimatum that the U.S. should work out a “new solution” to the denuclearization and provide the DPRK with security guarantees before the end of the year, otherwise the negotiations will be terminated.
In recent months, official Pyongyang has increasingly recalled that the deadline is coming to an end and is testing various types of weapons. According to the North Korean Foreign Ministry, Pyongyang was already on its way to a U.S. meeting. And if Washington does not take reciprocal steps now, it will receive a corresponding “Christmas present”. Despite this, Began said in mid-December that the U.S. does not have a deadline for high-level talks with North Korea.
In December, the DPRK already reported two “extremely important” tests at the Sohe Cosmodrome, which experts consider testing a new engine for an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Against this background, Russia and China have prepared a draft resolution at the UN calling for the early resumption of the six-party talks on DPRK. Negotiations in this format were conducted in Beijing from 2003 to 2009 by high-ranking diplomats from Russia, the United States, China, the DPRK, South Korea and Japan, who due to bilateral contradictions could not prevent the emergence of nuclear weapons in North Korea.