July 16, 2003	Wednesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 15, 1424

BEIJING, July 15: China on Tuesday showed growing signs of impatience with North Korea, urging a swift restart of nuclear talks after President Hu Jintao took the unusual step of sending a personal letter to Kim Jong-Il.

As Deputy Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo returned from delivering the message to the North Korean leader, the Chinese foreign ministry said getting talks going on the impasse was more important than haggling about the number of participants.

North Korea insists it speak directly to the United States about the standoff over its nuclear weapons programme, while Washington wants to include Seoul and Tokyo in talks.

“We adopt an open attitude to multiple parties being involved,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Kong Quan told a regular briefing. “But we believe what’s most critical right now is to continue the process of the talks.”

China, North Korea’s closest ally, has been trying to initiate a second round of discussions on Pyongyang’s nuclear programme following a first round of trilateral talks among the United States, North Korea and China in April.

A senior South Korean official told AFP Tuesday China had proposed a compromise format that would include bilateral talks within a multilateral setting.

But South Korea was not in favour of the idea and it was unlikely the United States would take the bait, the official said, asking not to be identified.

“Some Chinese officials were thinking it may be better for the US to show some flexibility to North Korea, to show some kind of bilateral contact between the US and North Korea which will be helpful in realising the resumption of talks at an early date,” the official said.

“But I don’t think it’s possible. The US position is so strong.

Last week South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun visited China to push North Korea towards agreeing to multilateral talks that would also include South Korea and likely Japan.

Pyongyang has turned up the pressure in recent days with reports that it has completed reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods to extract plutonium for nuclear weapons.

US and South Korean officials say North Korea may have one or two nuclear bombs and believe reprocessing the fuel rods would yield enough plutonium for around six more.

The nuclear crisis erupted in October when Washington said the North Koreans had admitted to running a nuclear programme based on enriched uranium in violation of a 1994 nuclear freeze accord.

The North Korean leader, who rarely receives foreign visitors, had what the Xinhua news agency described as “in-depth discussions on issues of mutual concern” with the Chinese envoy during his three-day stay in North Korea.

The details of Hu’s letter to Kim were kept strictly confidential, but its mere existence suggested a more active Chinese policy on North Korea, forced by growing worries over the isolated country’s ambitions, observers said.

“China is increasingly concerned that North Korea is not taking any constructive steps,” said Victor Cha, a Korea expert at Georgetown University in Washington.—AFP