US envoy: ’Very strong consensus’ with China on N. Korea
“We come here in the wake of some dramatic steps,” he told reporters in Beijing. Referring to the North’s earlier threat to take “physical counter-measures” against the South, he added that the comments were “troubling and counter-productive”.
The United States and China have “achieved a very strong degree of consensus” on North Korea, US envoy Glyn Davies said on Friday after meetings in Beijing following Pyongyang saying it planned another nuclear test.
“We come here in the wake of some dramatic steps,” he told reporters in Beijing. Referring to the North’s earlier threat to take “physical counter-measures” against the South, he added that the comments were “troubling and counter-productive”.
Davies, the US special representative for North Korea policy, said he had had wide-ranging discussions with Chinese officials on “all aspects of the North Korea issue” and they “achieved a very strong degree of consensus”.
Both sides agreed that “a nuclear test would be troubling and a setback to the efforts to denuclearize the Korean peninsula”, he said.
They also agreed that UN resolution 2087, passed earlier this week to expand sanctions against Pyongyang, was an “appropriate response and an important and strong response” to the North’s rocket launch last month.
“We talked about the implementations of the UN Security Council resolution and the Chinese assured us that they would of course follow and implement that resolution, and we take them at their word,” Davies added.