Top nuclear envoys of South Korea and the US agreed on Monday to cooperate closely in communicating with Beijing over the North’s nuclear issue, Seoul’s foreign ministry said, according to Yonhap News Agency.

During their phone talks, South Korea’s special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs Kim Gunn and US Special Representative for North Korea Sung Kim discussed the North’s denuclearization and the outcome of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent visit to China, according to the ministry.

Kim and Sung agreed the recent US-China meeting served as an “important opportunity to reaffirm” that North Korea’s denuclearization was in the common interests among the international community and vowed to continue urging China to play a “constructive role” in the nuclear issue, the report said. During his visit to China earlier this month, Blinken met Chinese President Xi Jinping and agreed to work toward stabilizing their ties so that it “does not veer into conflict.” The two nuclear envoys also discussed ways to step up cooperation to block North Korea’s nuclear and missile program financing through cryptocurrency theft and overseas workers. The two sides also criticized North Korea’s attempt to “distort history” by claiming the 1950-53 Korean War was “a war of aggression provoked by the US,” warning such propaganda moves will only backfire.

Earlier in the day, the North Korean Foreign Ministry accused Seoul and Washington of pushing current tensions on the peninsula to “the brink of a nuclear war,” likening it to the Korean War.

Source: Kuwait News Agency