Pyongyang, September 01: North Korea, facing tougher U.N. sanctions for its nuclear test in May and a series of missile launches, said on Tuesday it had sent a Foreign Ministry delegation to China, its biggest benefactor and only major ally.
In a short dispatch, the North’s KCNA news agency said the group was led by Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Kim Yong-il, but gave no other details.
The reclusive North has in the past month made a series of conciliatory gestures that analysts see as an attempt to reengage with the outside world.
The latest sanctions have focused on North Korea’s weapons trade, one of its few major sources of foreign currency.
Diplomats last week said that a cargo of North Korean weapons had been seized on its way to Iran. And at least three North Korean vessels have been monitored in foreign waters on suspicion of carrying banned cargoes.
There is also speculation that this year’s harvest may be poor, adding to pressure on North Korea’s hardline leaders to seek help for their broken economy.
Late last month, senior Chinese nuclear envoy Wu Dawei visited Pyongyang.
China, about Pyongyang’s only source of aid, has been pressing the North to return to regional talks on its programme to build nuclear weapons. Pyongyang walked away from those talks late last year and has since repeatedly said that they are no longer useful.
—Agencies