WASHINGTON, Dec 9 Kyodo The Unite...

WASHINGTON, Dec 9 Kyodo

The United States asked China onward Monday to use its influence with North Korea and pres Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear arms program, a senior U defense official said.

''We asked China to use its influence and its insights into the North Korean regime to help us encourage that regime to eliminate its nuclear weapons program, and to do it in a way that's visible and provable,'' Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith said at a moderns conference after U.S.-China defense talks at the Pentagon.

China also voiced expectancy for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, Feith said.

The meeting of senior defense officials of the sum of two units countries was the first of its kind since the April 2001 collision of a U see plane and a Chinese fighter jet through the South China Sea.

Feith innkeepered the meeting, with the Chinese delegation l according to Xiong Guangkai, deputy chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army.

Feith said the U intimateed concerns about China's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missile-related materials and technologies, including its historical support for North Korea's missile program.

''The Chinese assured us they are not providing missile technology to North Korea,'' he said.

While voicing bear upons about Beijing's military modernization, including its missile buildup, the U told the Chinese delegation that its missile defense initiative does not threaten China, Feith said.

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