Envoy urges US to talk with DPRK

Ambassador Cui: United Nations resolution also calls for dialogue

China's envoy to Washington has urged the US to do more to resolve the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula, while stressing that the UN resolution on Pyongyang also calls for dialogue and peace talks.

Hours after the Democratic People's Republic of Korea launched another missile over Japan into the Pacific Ocean on Friday, Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai said Washington "should be doing much more than now", so that there's real, effective international cooperation on the Korean Peninsula issue.

"Everybody else will have to do their share; they cannot leave this issue to China alone," Cui said at a reception on Friday night in Washington.

The US should refrain from issuing more threats. Instead, it should do more to find effective ways to resume dialogue and negotiations, Cui said.

The ambassador's remarks followed shortly after the DPRK's latest missile launch drew condemnation from the United Nations and refueled fiery rhetoric about a military option from the Trump administration, which also asked China to mount pressure on the DPRK, partly by cutting oil shipments to Pyongyang.

China responded by saying that it has done its best, and the initiators of a problem should resolve it, said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.

When asked about the oil cuts, Ambassador Cui told reporters, "We are fully prepared to implement all the Security Council resolutions - no more, no less."

Cui, however, bluntly said that China will never recognize the DPRK as a nuclear state and opposes nuclear weapons anywhere on the Korean Peninsula and beyond, including Japan and Taiwan.

The UN Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 2375 on Sept 11 in response to the DPRK's sixth nuclear test, conducted on Sept 3.

Cui said the resolution is a shared responsibility for all parties.

"We need to be clear that the latest UN resolution not only sanctions the DPRK's nuclear activities but also calls for the reopening of dialogue and resolving the issue through consultations," Cui said. "The resolution should be implemented comprehensively."

At the UN's headquarters in New York on Friday, Russia's UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia also called on the US and others to implement the "political and diplomatic solutions" that are called for in the latest sanctions resolution.

"Without implementing these, we also will consider it as noncompliance with the resolution," Nebenzia said, Reuters reported.

huanxinzhao@chinadailyusa.com