The United Nations said Tuesday that China has played an important and positive role in the situation on the Korean Peninsula.
“China has an important part to play in the situation on the Korean Peninsula and it has played a positive role,” Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said at a daily news briefing.
The Korean Peninsula situation was ushered in a new history as the international community widely applauded the summit between the leaders of the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
The UN chief has hailed Tuesday’s summit as “an important milestone.”
U.S. President Donald Trump and DPRK leader Kim Jong Un concluded their meeting in Singapore by signing a statement covering issues that included a pledge from the DPRK to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
On the eve of the summit, Guterres said at a press encounter that the road towards peace and verifiable denuclearization requires cooperation, compromise and a common cause, urging relevant parts of the UN system to stand ready to support the process.
Echoing the UN chief’s voice, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said also on Tuesday that China welcomed and supported the meeting, which was a goal that China had always expected to achieve.
It was of great and positive significance that the two leaders sat together and had equal dialogue, which was making new history, Wang said.
The UN chief commended China for having “an absolutely key role” in solving the Korean Peninsula issue in April, days after Kim’s visit to Beijing, the first time that the DPRK leader traveled to a foreign country since he took over the reign of the country.
It is important for the DPRK to have an open dialogue with the United States, as China has always recommended, so that a denuclearization could occur in a peaceful environment and to the benefit of all, Guterres said.
When meeting with Kim in Pyongyang in May, Wang said China supports an end to the state of war on the peninsula, and backs the DPRK’s decision to shift its strategic pivot to economic development and the resolution of the DPRK’s legitimate security concerns during the denuclearization process.
Ahead of the Singapore summit, Kim visited China twice and had talks with President Xi Jinping. The first occurred in Beijing at the end of March while the second occurred on May 7-8 in Dalian, northeast China’s Liaoning Province.
