Nuclear envoys of U.S., China held talks in Beijing last week

The top nuclear envoys of the United States and China held talks in Beijing last week, China's foreign ministry said Monday, as Washington presses Beijing to join in drawing up tougher sanctions against North Korea following its fourth nuclear test.

China's foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Sung Kim, the U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, and his Chinese counterpart Wu Dawei met in Beijing, but did not provide the outcome of the talks.

"Since North Korea's latest nuclear test, the Chinese side has been in close communications with all relevant parties," Lu told reporters during a regular press briefing.

The talks between Kim and Wu took place during Kim's two-day visit to Beijing last Thursday, a diplomatic source said earlier in the day.

Kim and Wu discussed follow-up measures after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi last Wednesday, according to the source.

Kerry and Wang agreed on the need for a new U.N. resolution targeting North Korea, but Wang apparently resisted calls for tougher measures to punish Pyongyang.

Meanwhile, a senior North Korean diplomat was spotted arriving at the Beijing airport last Thursday.

Choi Son-hui, North Korea's deputy chief of the long-stalled six-party talks on the North's nuclear program, made a stopover in Beijing on his way to Germany to attend a seminar, the source said.

South Korea and the United States have called on China, which keeps North Korea's economy afloat as a key supplier of food and oil, to back tougher U.N. sanctions against the North for its latest nuclear test on Jan. 6.

China's reaction to such calls has been lukewarm. Many analysts believe that China's Communist Party leadership won't exert enough leverage on North Korea because a sudden collapse of the North's regime could threaten China's own security interests. (Yonhap)