Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying (Photo source: fmprc.gov.cn)
BEIJING, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- China urges the United States to take due responsibility for the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue and provide effective solutions, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Monday.
U.S. Defence Secretary Ashton Carter reportedly called for further pressure on the DPRK last Friday after the country carried out a new nuclear test and said China bears "responsibility" for tackling the problem.
The essence of the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue is the conflict between the DPRK and the United States, spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a press conference.
As a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a close neighbor of the DPRK, China has made unremitting efforts to maintain peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and safeguard the international nuclear non-proliferation regime, Hua said.
A statement released by the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK Sunday said the United States compelled the DPRK to develop nuclear warheads, and the nuclear threat it has constantly posed to the DPRK for decades is the engine that has pushed the DPRK to this point.
Blindly increasing the pressure and the resulting bounce-back will only make the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula "a firm knot," Hua said, calling for responsibility from all relevant parties.
Hua reiterated that China will remain committed to resolving issues concerning the Peninsula through dialogue to realize long-term peace and stability.
China strongly urges all parties to speak and act cautiously with the larger picture in mind, avoid provoking each other and make genuine efforts to achieve denuclearization, peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, Hua said.
Moscow condemns the DPRK's nuclear tests but there should be more "creative" ways of responding to Pyongyang's activities than simply sanctions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday, adding that ways could be found to resume the six-party talks.
"We have seen the twists and turns in the situation on the Korean Peninsula since the six-party talks have stalled," Hua said, noting that it proves that simple sanctions cannot solve the issue.
Hua said the security concerns of parties on the Korean Peninsula must and can only be resolved in a way that serves the interests of all parties.
Any unilateral action based on one's self-interest will lead to a dead end, and it will not help resolve one's security concerns but will only aggravate the tension, complicate the issue, and make it more difficult to achieve relevant goals, Hua said.
The six-party talks, involving China, the DPRK, the United States, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Russia and Japan, were a multilateral mechanism aimed at solving the Korean Peninusla nuclear issue. The talks began in 2003 and stalled in December 2008. The DPRK quit the talks in April 2009.
"Resuming the six-party talks is difficult, but we cannot give up easily ," Hua said.
China will continue to keep close communication with relevant parties and call on them to return to the right track of solving issues related to the Korean Peninsula through dialogue and negotiation, the spokesperson said.
