BEIJING – Chinese President Xi Jinping offered encouragement for North Korea’s new focus on economic development in a speech in Pyongyang, turning to a topic Beijing has long pressed with its communist neighbor, amid wider concerns over the North’s nuclear weapons program.
In an address at a banquet Thursday night, Xi noted that the nation under leader Kim Jong Un had “initiated a new strategic line of economic development and improving people’s livelihoods, raising socialist construction in the country to a new high tide,” according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency.
Xi’s speech also touched on the nuclear issue, saying all sides agreed to “stick to peace talks so as to make even greater contributions to peace, stability and prosperity in the region and the wider world,” Xinhua said. (AP)
