Beijing calls on Pyongyang to suspend missile tests

Beijing, March 8: Chi on Wednesday proposed that North Korea suspend its tests of missile and nuclear technology to “defuse a looming crisis”. Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the US and South Korea could halt annual joint military drills, which consistently infuriate North Korea, if Pyongyang suspended its ballistic missile tests, BBC reported.

The appeal comes after North Korea test-launched four missiles on Monday, breaking intertiol sanctions. In response, the US began rolling out a missile defence system in South Korea.

Speaking on the sidelines of Chi’s annual parliamentary meeting, Wang said the Korean Peninsula was like “two accelerating trains, coming toward each other with neither side willing to give way”. “Are the two sides really ready for a head-on collision?” he asked. A mutual halt of military operations would be the first step towards easing tensions and reopening negotiations, he said. Three of the North Korean missiles came down inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) on Monday, prompting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US President Dold Trump to say the region had entered “a new stage of threat”.

The UN Security Council in a statement strongly condemned the launch, calling it a grave violation of North Korea’s intertiol obligations, which risked destabilising the region. (IANS)