(KUNA) -- An aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il arrived in Beijing on Tuesday, making him the first senior North Korean official to visit China since Pyongyang's deadly shelling of a South Korean island near the two countries' contested western sea border on November 23, the Japanese media reported.Choe Thae-bok, a secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea's Central Committee, may discuss with senior Chinese officials rising tension on the Korean Peninsula in the wake of the November 23 incident and a Chinese proposal to convene an emergency meeting of the heads of delegations to the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear programs to defuse such tension, said the Kyodo News Agency.
China, the North's closest ally, chairs the six-party talks over the North's nuclear programs, which also involve South Korea, the US, Japan and Russia.