Thursday's report by Xinhua news agency comes amid mounting pressure for China to rein in its North Korean ally. U.S. military chief of staff Mike Mullen renewed that message Thursday in Tokyo, where he urged Japan to join the United States and South Korea in facing any future North Korean aggression.
Photo: AP
In this photo released by Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service in Tokyo, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, center right, and Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo, center left, walk together in Pyongyang, 9 Dec. 2010
Xinhua, in a brief report from the North Korean capital, said Kim and Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo "reached consensus on bilateral relations and the situation on the Korean peninsula." Hours earlier, U.S. Admiral Mike Mullen said that China must do more to lead North Korea away from the escalating threat of war.
Both North and South Korea have exchanged threats and staged artillery exercises since North Korean forces shelled a South Korean island last month, killing four people. A five-day South Korean exercise concludes on Friday.
Mullen was in Tokyo for talks with Japanese Chief of Staff Ryoichi Oriki and Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa. He told South Korean officials a day earlier that he hoped Japan would join them in planning and taking part in military exercises to answer any new North Korean attack.
Mullen also repeated the U.S. complaint that China has "enabled" North Korea's reckless behavior by failing to condemn it forcefully. He said China "must lead and guide North Korea to a better future."
North Korea meanwhile defended its November 23 attack on Yeonpyeong Island, which killed two soldiers and two civilians and destroyed 29 homes. In a report carried Thursday by its official news agency, the North said it had merely responded to a provocation by South Korea, saying the South had fired "thousands of shells into the territorial waters" of North Korea.
The attack came during artillery drills on Yeonpyeong, which lies near North Korea in waters claimed by both sides. The South says it had been firing artillery in a direction away from North Korean coast.
The U.S. military says Mullen's visit to Seoul on Wednesday was aimed in part at coordinating plans for a response to any new aggression from North Korea. Mullen stressed that the North must realize it cannot strike the South again with impunity, but that the response should not escalate the conflict. He said he would not object to the South responding to a North Korean attack with air strikes.
In the United States on Wednesday, former ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson announced he will travel to North Korea next week to help ease tensions. Richardson, who now serves as governor of the state of New Mexico and has visited Pyongyang several times, said he will travel at the invitation of the North Korean government.
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