Kim Jong-un's envoy arrives in Beijing to mend strained ties
Visit from Pyongyang seen as attempt to restore alliance before Chinese talks with US and South Korea
A special envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un held talks with top officials in Beijing yesterday, in the first such encounter since China joined the United States and other nations in imposing sanctions on Pyongyang over its ambitious nuclear weapons programme.
The visit by Vice-Marshal Choe Ryong-hae, a senior member of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party, comes at a politically sensitive time, just weeks before Sino-US and Sino-South Korean summits.
President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama will hold their summit in California on June 7 and 8. South Korean President Park Geun-hye is expected to also make an official visit to Beijing next month.
Xinhua reported that Choe met Wang Jiarui , head of the Communist Party's international liaison department. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said only that the talks were an "exchange of views on the situation on the Korean peninsula and other issues of common interest".
Analysts said the trip was an effort by North Korea's young and inexperienced leader to repair badly damaged ties between the once close communist allies.
China supported UN sanctions against North Korea in response to a nuclear test in February. Earlier this month, the state-run Bank of China closed accounts of the North Korean Foreign Trade Bank because of its involvement in the weapons programme.
Relations between Beijing and Pyongyang were further strained earlier this month by the North Korean seizure of a Chinese fishing boat and its crew.