China hopes the six-party talks on the Korean Peninsula nuclear
issue will be held soon, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday.
"It's our belief that it would be better to hold the meeting as
early as possible," spokesman Liu Jianchao told a regular news
briefing.
On Tuesday's informal meeting in Beijing between chief delegates
to the six-party talks from China, North Korea and the US, which
led to the announcement of talks resuming, Liu said: "We appreciate
and welcome the positive attitude and flexibility they've
shown."
The meeting ended with an agreement to "restart the talks in the
near future at a time convenient to the six parties."
The talks aimed at making the Korean Peninsula nuclear-free also
involve South Korea, Russia and Japan. The last round of talks was
suspended in November last year when North Korea refused to return
to the negotiating table citing financial sanctions imposed by the
US against it.
On Wednesday, Pyongyang said it decided to return to the talks
"on the premise that the issue of lifting financial sanctions will
be discussed and settled between North Korea and the US within the
framework of the six-party talks."
US Ambassador to South Korea Alexander Vershbow said in Seoul
yesterday that Washington had agreed to form a working group on the
financial sanctions issue.
Speaking of UN sanctions against North Korea for its nuclear
test on October 9, Liu said Security Council Resolution 1718
represented the consensus of the international community. "Every
country has the obligation to strictly and faithfully fulfill the
resolution. China is no exception."
But the sanctions were not a goal in themselves, he said,
explaining they should be used to help resolve the issue through
diplomatic channels to maintain peace and stability of the Korean
Peninsula.
Liu said China was willing to discuss with Japan the
establishment of a free trade area (FTA). He was commenting on
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's remarks on the establishment
of an FTA with China. A Japanese reporter said Abe was considering
the issue but had concerns about intellectual property rights (IPR)
protection in China.
Liu said free trade would be conducive to the long-term stable
development of China-Japan economic and trade relations and was in
the interests of both countries as economic globalization and
regional integration developed.
It was also in the interests of China to protect IPR and the
government had taken a series of effective measures and made
important progress in this regard, he noted.
The government would take more administrative and legislative
measures to strengthen IPR protection and was willing to cooperate
with other countries in this field, Liu said.
In another development, Liu admitted former Thai prime minister,
Thaksin Shinawatra, was in China on a private visit, but the
Chinese government hadn't been informed by either the Thai
government or Thaksin of the visit.
Thaksin was toppled in a bloodless coup in September. It was
reported that he arrived in China on Tuesday and attempted to meet
with Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont at the China-ASEAN Summit held this week.
Also at yesterday's briefing Liu rejected a report by the
US-based National Academy of Sciences that a new strain of H5N1
bird flu has been found in the south of China.
"The continuous surveillance since 2004 has found no evidence of
major mutations to the virus and the biological characteristics of
the bird flu viruses selected from the south share a high
uniformity," he said.
A report about a new strain of H5N1 bird flu in south China was
released in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
this week, stating it was found in almost all poultry outbreaks and
some human cases.
Liu said the findings of mutations to the virus in north China
had been reported to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
and the World Organization for Animal Health.
"China has cooperated closely with the WHO and the FAO and
shares all information on bird flu and the virus with the
international community," he added.
(China Daily, Xinhua News Agency November 3, 2006)