China pledges constructive role for peace on Korean Peninsula

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in his meeting with South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun on Wednesday, said Beijing would “play a constructive role” in ensuring peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.

Beijing’s commitment was revealed after Cho asked Wang, who was visiting Seoul, to help encourage North Korea to return to dialogue, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday, without providing further details.

During the meeting, Cho outlined South Korea’s blueprint for realising a peaceful coexistence between the two Koreas on the Korean Peninsula. The blueprint had previously been presented in a speech by President Lee Jae Myung the previous week.

Lee proposed negotiations between “directly interested parties” to end the Korean War, which took place from 1950 to 1953, and to transform the armistice on the Korean Peninsula into a peace regime.

Such negotiations, he said, could find “effective ways” to halt North Korea’s development of nuclear capabilities.

According to South Korea’s Foreign Ministry, Wang said Beijing hopes South Korea and North Korea can gradually take the path towards peace and peaceful coexistence.

The meeting between the two foreign ministers took place ahead of Wang Yi’s meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Thursday.

Earlier on Wednesday, United States President Donald Trump said he hoped to hold a direct meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by the end of this year at the latest.

Trump ordered that the ongoing annual joint military exercises between the US and South Korea be shortened.

Trump said the exercises were “not only expensive,” but also sent a signal that was “completely inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea.

North Korea said the reduction in the scale of the military exercises would not change its view of the US and South Korea as hostile parties.