US envoy in China for talks on N Korea nuclear deal

BEIJING (AFP) - US envoy Christopher Hill held talks Saturday with his Chinese counterpart amid stepped-up efforts to salvage a crumbling North Korean nuclear disarmament deal, a US embassy spokesman said.

Hill briefed Chinese officials, including top nuclear negotiator Wu Dawei, as well as Sergey Razov, Russia’s ambassador to China, on his visit to Pyongyang, the spokesman added.

On Saturday evening he headed to Washington via Tokyo, the spokesman said.

The US diplomat Friday described as “very substantive” the talks during his visit to Pyongyang, but gave no further details, saying he must first brief other parties to the six-nation agreement.

A dispute over inspections of the North’s nuclear facilities threatens to wreck last year’s agreement under which the North shut down its nuclear programme in return for fuel aid and its removal from a US terrorism blacklist.