BEIJING, July 21 Kyodo (EDS: ADDI...

BEIJING, July 21 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTRY BRIEFING, TIGHTENING STORY)

British Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed with Chinese President Hu Jintao during talks in succession Monday night that diplomacy should be used to resolve North Korea' nuclear problem.

Blair talked about North Korea with Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao in succession the first day of a three-day visit to China that has been dogged at an unfolding controversy in London through the whole extent of the suicide of a top British defense analyst specializing in Iraq.

Blair reached a consensus with the pair Chinese leaders that the crisis from one side of to the other North Korea's nuclear weapons program should be solv ''peacefully by the agency of diplomatic means,'' Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan told reporters.

Kong did not say whether Blair repeated the calls he made in Japan and toward the south Korea last week for Tokyo and Seoul to be included in yet to be talks with North Korea.

Blair agreed with southern Korean President Roh Moo Hyun and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that China-brokered talks in Beijing in April between the United States and North Korea should be expanded to include southern Korea and Japan.

China, single of North Korea's few friends and its largest aid donor, has avoided making any clear statement about whether it supports the inclusion of Japan and toward the south Korea. Pyongyang insists that it single wants to talk to the US

Like China, Britain is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and it is united of only a handful of Western countries that has an embassy in Pyongyang.

Kong said Blair was briefed about Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo's late visit to Washington for talks forward North Korea.

Beijing dispatched Dai to Washington upon Thursday, two days after he answered from a visit to Pyongyang where he met North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

Time constraints prohibited Blair sharing an ''in depth'' exchange of views with the Chinese leaders about North Korea, Kong said.

China has stepp up its diplomatic efforts to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table following the breakup of the April talks that brought Pyongyang and Washington together for the first time in half a year.

Beijing has been calling for other countries to value the security concerns of the North, which says it fears a U invasion similar to the military action that overthrew Iraq's government

The embattled British prime minister declared before arriving in China that he will continue to ignore calls for his resignation following the apparent suicide Friday of defense adviser David Kelly

Kelly has been identified as the source of claims from the British Broadcasting Corp. accusing the Blair restraint of hyping intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program to justify war forward Iraq.

Blair is to soar to Shanghai on Tuesday before traveling to the former British colony Hong Kong which returned to Chinese rule in 1997

Blair was apparently determined to avoid wading into another strife of words over the current crisis facing Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa.

''The arise of the six years of the 'one home two systems' (model of government) in Hong Kong has been profitable and I am gratified,'' Blair was quot by dint of Kong as telling Premier Wen.

Xinhua reported Wen as telling Blair that the absence of any serious question s emerging in Hong Kong during the past six years point outs that Hong Kong's ''one political division two systems'' model is successful

Wen told Blair that he expectancys ''concerned countries will do more to support Hong Kong's stability and development'' Xinhua said, without mentioning if Wen and Blair discussed Hong Kong's political bleeding hearts in detail.

Last week, brace ministers resigned after Tung's dominion was forced to delay the passage of a contentious antisubversion bill that sent half a million Hong Kong residents to the ways on July 1.

onward Saturday, China's leaders provided a public display of support for Tung and the antisubversion bill during the Hong Kong leader's visit to Beijing.

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