South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said on Wednesday he had urged Chinese leader Xi Jinping to help him curb Pyongyang’s nuclear programme and suggested a freeze in exchange for “compensation” was possible.
Lee is the first South Korean leader to visit the Chinese capital in six years.
On Monday, he met with Xi Jinping in Beijing, a day after North Korea, armed with nuclear weapons, fired two ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan.
Speaking to reporters in Shanghai at the conclusion of the visit, he said he had asked Beijing for help in bringing Pyongyang back to the negotiating table.
“I would like China to play a mediating role on issues related to the Korean Peninsula, including North Korea’s nuclear program. All our channels are completely blocked,” he told Xi.
“We hope that China can serve as a mediator, a mediator for peace,” he added.
The Chinese leader, in response, urged Seoul to show “patience” with Pyongyang, given the deteriorating relations between the two Koreas, Lee added.
“And they are right. For quite some time, we carried out military actions that North Korea would have perceived as threatening,” Lee said.
The South Korean leader also presented a plan under which Pyongyang would freeze its nuclear program in exchange for “compensation.”
“Simply maintaining the current level—no additional nuclear weapons production, no transfer of nuclear materials abroad, and no further development of intercontinental ballistic missiles—would already be an achievement,” he declared, referring to intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“In the long term, we must not abandon the goal of a Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons,” he added.
He further stated that he had asked Beijing to convey this message to Pyongyang and that “there was consensus among the Chinese on these points.”