Top U.S. and Chinese negotiators agreed Thursday to try to lure North Korea back to nuclear disarmament talks, after Washington dismissed as counterproductive the North's latest threat to resume long-range missile testing. U.S. ambassador to South Korea Christopher Hill, who is Washington's top negotiator in the nuclear talks, and Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Wu Dawei "had a good meeting and a constructive exchange of views," an American embassy official said. "Both parties agreed that the Korean Peninsula must be denuclearized and the six-party talks are the best way to achieve this goal," the official said on condition of anonymity. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in Beijing that, "Ambassador Hill said America harbors no hostility toward (North Korea) and the United States is willing to have serious dialogue." Wu arrived Wednesday for a three-day trip to Seoul and has also met South Korean officials, including seeing Unification Minister Chung Dong-young on Thursday after his talks with Hill. International efforts to bring the North back to the six-party talks gained urgency after its Feb. 10 claim that it had built nuclear weapons and would boycott international disarmament talks indefinitely. --more 1311 Local Time 1011 GMT
