China’s foreign minister Wang Yi (left) shakes hands with North Korea’s foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho at the Mansudae Assembly Hall in Pyongyang on May 2, 2018 © AFP / KIM Won-Jin
BEIJING, China, May 3 – Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a rare visit to Pyongyang, China’s foreign ministry said Thursday on its official social media account.
The two-day visit by Wang Yi — the highest-ranking Chinese official to travel to North Korea in years — follows a landmark inter-Korean summit and precedes a planned meeting between Kim and US President Donald Trump in the coming weeks.
The meeting with Kim followed talks Wednesday between Wang and his North Korean counterpart Ri Yong Ho, where the two discussed issues including the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.
Wang, who arrived in Pyongyang Wednesday, is the first Chinese foreign minister to visit the North since 2007, a lapse that highlights the rough patch in relations between the allies in recent years.
China — North Korea’s sole diplomatic ally and economic benefactor — has supported a series of United Nations sanctions against Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programmes.
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