US should 'do its duty' to resolve North Korea nuclear crisis, China says
Core of problem is the conflict between Washington and Pyongyang, foreign ministry spokeswoman says
Beijing said on Friday that the United States should take responsibility for resolving the North Korea nuclear crisis as the root of the problem was a conflict between Washington and Pyongyang.
“The nature of the North Korea nuclear problem is a security issue. The core of it is the conflict between the US and North Korea,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing.
Her comments came just hours after North Korea fired another missile over Japan. The aggressive act prompted a statement by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who singled out China and Russia as the two nations best equipped to rein in Kim Jong-un.
“China supplies North Korea with most of its oil. Russia is the largest employer of North Korean forced labour,” he said. “China and Russia must indicate their intolerance for these reckless missile launches by taking direct actions of their own.”
Hua, however, rebuffed the charges, saying China was not to blame for the situation on the Korean Peninsula.
“The focus of the conflict is not China. The cause of escalating tensions is not China and the key to the problem is also not China,” she said.