China said yesterday US policy on North Korea was the biggest obstacle to resolving the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula, but expressed confidence the North wanted to work for a peaceful solution.
Asked by reporters what he thought was the main obstacle to progress, China's Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi (
North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), had said its expectations at last week's talks also involving China, Japan, Russia and South Korea had been "betrayed" by "hostile" US policy.
North Korea also described the discussions as "pointless" and threw into doubt its participation at the next round of talks.
Wang, the chief Chinese delegate at the talks in Beijing last week, is accompanying China's number two leader Wu Bangguo (
Washington has reportedly rejected Pyongyang's demand for a non-aggression pact and other concessions as a precondition to dismantling its nuclear programs.
Wang indicated yesterday that Washington might have to make its position on North Korea more clear.
"We want the US to make clear about its position," he said when asked to elaborate his view that Washington and Pyongyang could still finally resolve their differences through compromise.
"We hope each party, including the US and DPRK, move together so we can find the final solution," he said.
Wang said North Korea might be dissatisfied with the discussions in Beijing but that it was keen to resolve the dispute through peaceful means.
"They may not be so satisfied but they also want to continue the peace process," he said. "So what we are going to do is see how we can narrow the difference and how we can enlarge our common consensus, common ground."
Asked to comment on what one journalist described as Washington's "hardline" position, Wang said: "This is the first round of talks. So, I don't think this is the final position of each side.
"The purpose of the first round of negotiations is to know each other, know each other's basic position."
He said last week's talks were "just the beginning" of what "might be a long, long" process.
Washington has been adamant that the Stalinist state's nuclear program must be dismantled before it will consider economic assistance and diplomatic normalization for the bankrupt country.
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
Hong Kong microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung (袁國勇) has done battle with some of the world’s worst threats, including the SARS virus he helped isolate and identify, and he has a warning. Another pandemic is inevitable and could exact damage far worse than COVID-19 pandemic, said the soft-spoken scientist sometimes thought of as Hong Kong’s answer to former US National Institutes of Health director Anthony Fauci. “Both the public and [world] leaders must admit that another pandemic will come, and probably sooner than you anticipate,” he said at the city’s Queen Mary Hospital, where he works and teaches. “Why I make such a horrifying prediction
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant