Pyongyang 'to heed Beijing'

DPRK is willing to take China's advice to engage in dialogue

Pyongyang is willing to take Beijing's advice to engage in dialogue on the Korean Peninsula issue, a visiting special envoy of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea top leader Kim Jong-un said on Thursday.

The envoy said his country wants to focus on economic development and needs a peaceful external environment for that aim, adding that his visit aims to consolidate ties with Beijing.

Pyongyang observers said the suggested softened stance would break a months-long impasse on the peninsula.

The envoy, Director of the Korean People's Army's General Political Bureau Choe Ryong-hae, made the remarks in a meeting with

Liu Yunshan, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.

Beijing "expects all parties involved to stick to the goal of peninsula denuclearization and keep maintaining peace and stability on the peninsula", Liu said, according to a statement issued by China after the meeting.

He asked the countries concerned to "take concrete action to ease tensions, actively push forward dialogue and consultation and restart the Six-Party Talks at an early date".

These talks, initiated in 2003 in response to the DPRK withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, involve the DPRK, the Republic of Korea, China, the United States, Japan and Russia. In April 2009, the DPRK, irritated by a UN Security Council resolution to impose more sanctions on Pyongyang for a nuclear test, left the talks and resumed its nuclear weapons program.