The US and China made new diplomatic efforts yesterday to jumpstart talks with North Korea, which warned it was ready for all-out war after test-firing seven missiles last week.
With the UN Security Council set to decide later in the day when to vote on a contested resolution aimed at punishing the secretive state for the tests, US and Chinese delegations held talks in Japan and North Korea, respectively.
The top US envoy on North Korea, Christopher Hill, met with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso in Tokyo a day after North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il said he would not back down under US pressure.
"North Korea has a choice of whether to go for continued isolation or to join the international community. I hope they will make the right choice," Hill said.
"We have a process, an agreement in principle -- the Beijing agreement last September," Hill said.
"What the North Koreans need to do is to come to the next session of the six-party talks [on Pyong-yang's nuclear program] and begin to implement that agreement," he told reporters after meeting Aso.
Japan wants an early Security Council vote on a resolution that could pave the way for fresh international sanctions against North Korea, whose missiles landed in the Sea of Japan last Wednesday.
"We have to resolve the issues of missiles and nuclear weapons in the framework of six-party talks," Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, the Japanese government's top spokesman, told reporters.
"In the framework China is supposed to play a key role. I hope that China will firmly assume the responsibility as chair country," he said.
The US, which also supports the UN resolution, has been pushing for a hard line against the North.China and Russia oppose a legally binding council resolution that could lead to sanctions and, in theory at least, military action.
Senior US official Nicholas Burns said on Sunday that Washington wanted China to "use its influence to push forward and ask North Korea to meet the commitments that they made to all of us."
Beijing yesterday sent a delegation to Pyongyang led by Vice Premier Hui Liangyu (
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