BEIJING, April 8 (Reuters) - China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit North Korea over April 9-10, his ministry said on Wednesday, signalling efforts by the East Asian neighbours to revitalise ties that chilled after the COVID‑19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Wang’s last publicly known visit to North Korea as China’s foreign minister was in late 2019, following reciprocal visits by the two countries’ top leaders earlier that year.
“China is willing to strengthen strategic communication with North Korea and enhance exchanges and cooperation,” a Chinese ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, said during a regular press conference.
She called Wang’s upcoming visit “an important move to advance bilateral ties.”
Beijing has worked to draw Pyongyang back into its orbit, after the COVID‑19 pandemic froze exchanges and as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shored up relations with Moscow, sending troops and weapons in support of Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine.
Passenger train service between Beijing and Pyongyang resumed in March after being suspended for six years since the onset of the pandemic in 2020. China’s flag carrier Air China has also restarted flights between the two capitals.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un travelled to Beijing in September on board an armoured train to join Russian President Vladimir Putin and other leaders for a massive military parade in the Chinese capital, where Kim met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
That meeting was followed by a visit to Pyongyang in October by China’s No.2 official, Premier Li Qiang.
“Preserving, consolidating, and developing China-DPRK relations has always been an unwavering strategic policy of the party and government of China,” Mao said on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Ethan Wang, Xiuhao Chen and Liz Lee; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Janane Venkatraman)
