Xi Jinping backs Seoul’s efforts to restart talks with North Korea

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his South Korean counterpart, Moon Jae-in, agreed at a summit meeting on Thursday that North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile test was “unforgivable”, South Korean media reported.

The leaders also discussed stronger sanctions and pressure against Pyongyang in Berlin ahead of a G20 summit in Hamburg that begins on Friday, Yonhap reported.

Xi told Moon that China supported the new South Korean government’s ­efforts to restart dialogue and contacts with North Korea, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

But Xi called on Moon to clear impediments in bilateral relations, a reference to China’s opposition to a sophisticated US anti-missile system deployed in South Korea.

Meeting Moon for the first time, Xi said Beijing hoped Seoul “can attend to China’s major concerns and handle relevant issues properly so as to clear the obstacles for the development of bilateral ties”.

“For a period of time, China-South Korea relations have been facing difficulties, and we do not want to see that,” he was quoted as saying.