Foreign Minister calls for restart of Six-Party Talks

On the 10th anniversary of the release of a joint statement to work towards nuclear nonproliferation on the Korean Peninsula at the Six Party Talks back on Sept 19, 2005, Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged all parties to reactivate the statement and make concerted efforts to restart the talks in Beijing on Saturday.

Wang made the remarks at the closing ceremony of an international seminar hosted by the China Institute of International Studies to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the release of the joint statement at the conclusion of the fourth round of the Six-Party Talks.

Among other agreements reached in that round of talks and listed in the joint statement, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs, and return to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons and to the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency as soon as possible.

The United States affirmed in the joint statement "it has no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula and has no intention to attack or invade the DPRK with nuclear or conventional weapons."

In April 2009, however, the DPRK announced a withdrawal from the Six-Party Talks and that it would not fulfill agreements reached during the talks, after the United Nations Security Council issued a presidential statement condemning its satellite launch.

"Due to a lack of trust between the parties involved, the Six-Party Talks that started after many difficulties have been bogged down, and the joint statement reached on Sept 19, 2005 through hard work had to be shelved," Wang said.

"The joint statement is the foundation of the Six-Party Talks. The principles and ideas it states is in line with the common interests of all related parties," he said. "We should try our best to implement it, instead of shelving it or even denying or overturning it lightly."

China calls parties involved to take the 10th anniversary of the release of the joint statement as an opportunity to resume the implementation of their duties established in the statement, he added.

Wang said that all parties involved should reiterate the goal of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula while "attaching importance to the huge military pressure the DPRK has been facing over the years, resolving properly its reasonable safety concerns, while taking into account all the other parties' justified and reasonable calls."

He also called for exploration of ways to ensure the peace, safety and stability of the peninsula and Northeast Asia.

"War or chaos on the peninsula is good for nobody. Any thoughts or actions that disrupt the peace and stability of Northeast Asia are inadvisable," he said.

"We hope through commemorating and reviewing the joint statement and its spirit, we will be able to ... find a new way to restart the dialogue on the basis of balancing concerns held by each related party," said Su Ge, president of China Institute of International Studies, which hosted the international seminar from Friday to Saturday.

More than 100 scholars and officials from China, Russia, the United States, the Republic of Korea and Japan attended the seminar.