China to try to restart talks on N. Korean nukes

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - China has pledged to try reviving talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear programs following the isolated Stalinist state's declaration that it has atomic weapons and is boycotting disarmament negotiations.

The United States and other countries involved in the six-party talks have urged China to use its influence over North Korea. Beijing is Pyongyang's last major ally and a key supplier of food and energy to the impoverished dictatorship.

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing told U.S. State Secretary Condoleezza Rice that Beijing firmly supports a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, the Chinese government.

Li told Rice by phone that "China will stay in touch with all relevant parties... so that the six-party talks could be resumed as soon as possible," the Foreign Ministry said. The discussions also involve South Korea, Russia and Japan.

South Korea's foreign minister also said he had discussed with U.S. officials "views that China should strengthen efforts to persuade the North," South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. Ban Ki-moon, in Washington on a previously scheduled trip, met Rice on February 14.

North Korea announced that it has built nuclear weapons to defend itself from the alleged threat of a U.S. invasion — dramatically raising tensions in the two-year nuclear standoff. Washington denies it intends to attack. North Korea's claim could not be independently verified.

North Korea also said it would stay away from the six-country negotiations. A North Korean diplomat reportedly has requested direct talks with Washington as a way out of the impasse.

But the White House rejects such a move and insists that the North join the six-party talks. Three rounds of negotiations have been held in Beijing with no breakthrough.

A North Korean district official in Pyongyang said recently the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula would help six-party talks. Han Song Nam, a deputy chairman for a district in Pyongyang of the country's communist party, said it "would be a practical measure in the withdrawal of the United States' hostile policy," according to Yonhap, which monitored North Korea's Radio Pyongyang.

Washington has been South Korea's key security ally since the 1950-1953 Korean war, and keeps thousands of troops based there and in neighbouring Japan.