BEIJING:
China's foreign minister said his
country was "worried" by North Korea's impending rocket launch, as
the regime in Pyongyang again insisted it was to send a peaceful satellite and
not a missile.
Yang
Jiechi told his South Korean and Japanese counterparts on Sunday that peace on
the Korean peninsula was in the interests of all, according to a foreign
ministry statement.
"Yang
Jiechi said China is concerned and worried about the developments on the
issue," said the statement, released late Sunday after the three ministers
met in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo.
"China
calls upon relevant parties to focus on the overall situation and look in the
long-term, and to remain calm and exercise restraint and to use diplomacy and
peaceful means to adequately resolve relevant problems."
Concerns
are growing over North Korea's rocket launch, slated between April 12 and April
16, despite assurances from the nuclear-armed nation that it was to send a peaceful
scientific satellite and not a ballistic missile.
Japan
has deployed missile batteries to protect Tokyo and dispatched three Aegis
destroyers carrying interceptor missiles, reportedly to the East China Sea.
Japanese
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has given the green light to shoot down the
rocket if it threatens Japan's territory.
The
secretive North Korean regime organised an unprecedented visit for foreign
reporters to the Tongchang-ri space centre to disprove missile test claims by
the US and its allies, where its head called the accusations
"nonsense."
Yang
also called for the resumption of six-party talks involving North and South
Korea, the US, China, Russia and Japan, stalled since the last meeting in
December 2008.
-
AFP/cc
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