China: NKorea has right to peaceful use of space

CHINA: China said Tuesday that North Korea had the right to peaceful use of space, as it refused to condemn its ally's weekend rocket launch.

In its clearest comments yet following North Korea's launch, China's foreign ministry said the United Nations should not over-react and that the most pressing concern was to restart stalled nuclear disarmament talks.

"We hope relevant parties can maintain restraint and stay calm to safeguard overall peace and stability," foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters.

"This issue also involves a country's right to peaceful use of space. We believe the (UN) Security Council should respond in a prudent way."

North Korea maintains Sunday's launch put an experimental communications satellite into orbit, but Washington and its allies say the real purpose was to test a Taepodong-2 missile that could in theory reach Alaska.

The United States and Japan are pushing for the Security Council to react strongly to the test, saying it violated UN resolutions, but China and Russia have been pushing for a more muted response.

When asked if China condemned the launch, Jiang declined to say anything critical of North Korea, instead commenting on the importance of the six-nation talks aimed at dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear programmes.

BEIJING, Tuesday, AFP