BEIJING, January 10 (RIA Novosti, Alexei Yefimov) - China hopes that the issue of U.S. financial sanctions being imposed on North Korea will be addressed through dialogue, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Tuesday.
Kong Quan said all the negotiators and the entire international community were concerned about complications emerging in the ongoing six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program.
The United States, a long-term ally of South Korea, has been involved in a two-year stand-off with the communist North over the latter's nuclear ambitions. In a move that was said to have no bearing on the talks to resolve the nuclear problem, the U.S. imposed sanctions in fall 2005, accusing the country of producing counterfeit dollars, money laundering and drug smuggling. The foreign assets of eight North Korean companies were frozen.
Washington has so far refused to discuss ending of the sanctions because they do not affect the talks, which began in 2003 and also involve China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan. However, in early January, Pyongyang said it would not resume the nuclear talks until the U.S. lifted the financial sanctions against it.
Quan said China was hoping for a solution based on mutual respect and equality, which would help avoid any further complications in the negotiating process.
According to Quan, China expects all the negotiators to do their best to accelerate the second phase of the fifth round of talks, the first stage of which was held in Beijing November 9-11 and yielded a statement on starting the second round as soon as possible.
