North Korea crisis: China urges Pyongyang to end missile tests and accept UN sanctions

The Chinese foreign minister has has urged his North Korean counterpart to abide by UN resolutions and stop provoking "the international community's goodwill" with missile launches and nuclear tests. 

Wang Yi said he and Ri Yong Ho had an intensive conversation during which China urged North Korea to maintain calm after they met in Manila on the sidelines of a regional meeting.

Mr Wang also urged the US and South Korea "to stop increasing tensions" and said that all sides should return to negotiations. 

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho (left) poses with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi for a photo prior to their bilateral meeting in the sideline of the 50th ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting and its Dialogue Partners, in Pasay city, south Manila, Philippines (AP/Bullit Marquez)

Their meeting came hours after the UN Security Council unanimously approved tough new sanctions to punish Pyongyang for its escalating nuclear and missile programmes.

In an earlier statement, Mr Wang appealed to other governments to resume the six-nation talks involving the North, the United States, Russia, Japan and South Korea, as well as Beijing. 

"The aim is to bring the peninsula nuclear issue back to the negotiating table and seek a solution through negotiations until the denuclearisation of the peninsula and the stability of the peninsula are achieved," he said. 

North Korea pulled out of the talks in 2009 to protest international condemnation of a long-range rocket launch.

Last month, it test-launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the US mainland. 

The US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, has said Washington wants eventually to talk to North Korea, but thinks discussions would not be productive if Pyongyang comes with the intention of maintaining its nuclear weapons. 

Mr Wang's statement repeated Beijing's proposal for a "double suspension," or a halt to North Korean nuclear development and to joint US-South Korean military exercises.

It said that was the most reasonable way to ease tensions and create conditions for new talks. 

Susan Thornton, the top US diplomat for Asia, said the Washington isn't currently considering China's proposal to freeze US military exercises with South Korea in exchange for the North halting nuclear development.

She said the US rejects any "moral equivalency" implied by the proposal.