China hopes to promote ties
♦ North may be preparing for missile test: Seoul
♦ Pyongyang working on advanced ICBM: US
Chinese President Xi Jinping replied to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's congratulatory message on China's Communist Party Congress, saying he hopes to promote ties between the two countries, North Korea's state news agency said yesterday.
The friendly exchange is relatively routine, but it comes as China has come under intense pressure from the United States to do more to rein in the North's missile and nuclear tests, which have raised tensions globally.
China has been increasingly frustrated over ally North Korea's weapons tests in defiance of UN resolutions, repeatedly calling for restraint and urging all sides to speak and act carefully.
Xi's message comes days before US President Donald Trump makes his first official visit to Asia, with North Korea high on the agenda. It follows Tuesday's unexpected agreement between Seoul and Beijing to move beyond a year-long dispute over the deployment of a US anti-missile system in South Korea.
"I wish that under the new situation, the Chinese side would make efforts with the DPRK side to promote relations between the two parties and the two countries to sustainable soundness and stable development and thus make a positive contribution to ... defending regional peace and stability and common prosperity," Xi wrote in the message dated Nov 1, according to the North's official news agency KCNA.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying did not give details of the message from Xi to Kim but confirmed it had been sent to express thanks for Kim's congratulatory messages.
The message had yet to be carried by Chinese state media as of yesterday afternoon, reported Reuters.
South Korea's spy agency said yesterday Pyongyang may be preparing for another missile test.
"There is a possibility that North Korea will launch a missile as active movements of vehicles have been detected at a missile research facility in Pyongyang," the National Intelligence Service told a closed-door parliamentary audit, the Yonhap news agency reported.
In July Pyongyang launched two ICBMs apparently capable of reaching the US mainland - described by leader Kim Jong-Un as a gift to "American bastards" - and followed up with two missiles that passed over Japan and its sixth nuclear test, sending tensions rocketing, reported AFP.
Meanwhile, a US official told CNN North Korea was working on an advanced version of its existing KN-20 intercontinental ballistic missile that could potentially reach the United States, less than six months after it launched its first ICBM.
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