Obama and Hu discuss North Korea, Pakistan

USA: President Barack Obama spoke Wednesday with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao and shared his “concerns” over security issues including North Korea’s nuclear program and deteriorating conditions in Pakistan, the White House said.

The phone call is the first publicized direct contact between the leaders of the world’s largest economy and the world’s most populous nation since the pair met in London April 1 ahead of an economic summit, and the first since a renewed flare-up in China-US naval tensions.

The White House said the leaders “discussed regional security issues,” but it avoided specifying whether Obama and Hu waded into Friday’s encounter in waters off the Chinese mainland between Chinese fishing boats and a US Navy observation vessel — the latest in a series of high-seas standoffs this year which have put the two militaries on edge.

“President Obama described to President Hu his concerns over recent actions by North Korea and threats to Pakistan by militant extremists and terrorists,” the White House said in a readout of the discussion.

It added that the leaders “agreed to stay in close touch with each other on these important issues.” In London Obama accepted an invitation to visit China in the second half of the year.

The call came on the day Washington was dispatching its special envoy on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, to Beijing and then to Seoul, Tokyo and Moscow in a bid to salvage stalled six-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear disarmament and bring the isolated Stalinist regime back to the negotiating table.

Washington, Thursday, AFP