North Korea has offered to renew nuclear disarmament talks, according to the Chinese state media.At a meeting on Thursday between vice-marshal Choe Ryong Hae and Liu Yunshan, a senior figure in the Chinese Communist party, North Korea heeded China's wishes after months of rising friction between the allies, according to reports. Pyongyang's special envoy praised China's work on behalf of peace and stability and its "great efforts to return [Korean] peninsular issues to the channel of dialogue and negotiation," China Central Television reported. It quoted Choe as saying North Korea "is willing to accept the suggestion of the Chinese side and launch dialogue with all relevant parties".
The North's official Korean Central News Agency made no mention of the concession and instead quoted Choe as saying Pyongyang was committed to maintaining friendly ties with Beijing.
Choe's fence-mending visit to China is the first high-level, face-to-face contact between the two governments in six months, an unusual gap during which Pyongyang conducted rocket launches and nuclear tests and other sabre-rattling. The moves angered Beijing, which felt its interests in regional stability were not being taken account of. It showed its displeasure by joining with the US to back UN sanctions and cut off dealings with North Korea's Foreign Trade Bank.
China's North Korea watchers said the leadership in Beijing would not have accepted Choe's visit without a promise from Pyongyang that it was prepared to return to diplomacy.
CCTV said Liu, the Communist party's fifth-ranked leader, called at the meeting for "practical steps to alleviate the tense situation" and an early return to six-nation Korean denuclearisation talks involving the US, South Korea, Japan and Russia as well as North Korea and China.
Pyongyang sent Choe to Beijing as a special envoy for the North Korean leader,