chinese official to visit n.korea saturday-source Chinese...

chinese official to visit n.korea saturday-source Chinese official to visit N.Korea Saturday-source
16 Feb 2005 06:39:57 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Adds Chinese comment, paragraphs 5-7; analyst, 12-13)

TOKYO, Feb 16 (Reuters) - A senior Chinese official is to visit North Korea on Saturday in an effort to persuade it to return to multilateral talks on its nuclear arms programme, a diplomatic source in Tokyo said.

North Korea said last Thursday it had made nuclear weapons and was pulling out of the long-stalled six-party talks, which also include South Korea, Japan, the United States, China and Russia.

The official, Wang Jiarui, is head of the Chinese Communist Party's international liaison department.

"We understand his visit to North Korea is set for Feb. 19-22," the diplomatic source told Reuters.

In Beijing, a Communist Party official said a delegation from the liaison department would visit North Korea for about a week at the invitation of the international department of its North Korean counterpart.

"We will announce the visit to North Korea in a few days," the official said by telephone.

"This is part of a planned exchange of delegations. A delegation from the Chinese Communist Party's liaison department visits North Korea at the beginning of each year," said the official who declined to be identified.

The Tokyo-based diplomatic source said officials from Japan, South Korea and the United States would meet after Wang's visit to discuss how to deal with the crisis over North Korea's nuclear arms programme.

Japan's Kyodo news agency said the three-way meeting would take place in Seoul on Feb. 24.

Washington intends to urge North Korea through China -- host to previous rounds of the six-party talks -- to return to the negotiations at an early stage without preconditions and to prevent the situation from worsening amid speculation that the North may test its nuclear arms, Kyodo added, quoting the diplomatic sources.

North Korea has been playing the nuclear card to try to win diplomatic and economic benefits since a standoff that began in October 2002 when Washington said it had admitted to a secret programme to enrich uranium in violation of a 1994 accord.

"North Korea's nuclear programme is aimed for the survival of the country and its current regime," Masao Okonogi, a Korea expert at Tokyo's Keio University, said.

"North Korea will not abandon its nuclear development programme unless it is convinced of assurances that the current regime will survive. That's why negotiations are so difficult."