Chinese President Xi Jinping told a ministerial gathering in Beijing his government would not tolerate any instability on the Korean peninsula.
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China would continue to pursue its denuclearisation programme through dialogue and consultation, and would not allow the Korean peninsula to fall into war or chaos, Xi said. Since then, the country has carried out ballistic missile tests and threatened to conduct more nuclear tests despite tightened global sanctions.
Mr Xi made the remarks in a speech to a group of Asian foreign ministers attending the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia in Beijing.
“Earlier this year, we witnessed North Korea, the only country that has conducted nuclear tests in the 21st century, engage again in its fourth and latest one”, South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Yun Byung-se said at the meeting.
The isolated state is expected to conduct another nuclear test before a rare congress of its ruling party, beginning on May 6, where young leader Kim Jong-un is likely to make a play for cementing his leadership. Belarus’ participation in the political mechanisms of the CICA has created a new channel for developing and strengthening contacts with its member states and observers, the possibility for exchanging views on topical issues of the global and regional agenda and receiving first hand information on the processes taking place today in Asian countries.
Yun went on to call for the global community to stand firm in taking a united and coordinated stance to block advances in North Korea’s nuclear weapons capabilities and stop another nuclear test.
North Korea’s diplomatic isolation has grown with provocations.
“I also hope that our CICA partners, as regional countries, demonstrate their leadership in thoroughly implementing UN Security Council Resolution 2270”, he said, to help Pyongyang make “the right strategic choice”.
The CICA was established in 1992 as a regional security forum at the initiative of Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
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The statement “proves North Korea is completely isolated, and has been abandoned by the global community”, Yun said.
