U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in Washington this week for talks mainly on North Korea and Syria, Kerry's department announced Monday.
Their meeting, slated for Thursday, is part of regular consultations between the two global powers on a range of bilateral, regional and other issues, it said.
"While this meeting has been planned for some time, we do expect the secretary and foreign minister to discuss current issues such as the DPRK and Syria," the department's deputy spokeswoman, Marie Harf, said at the beginning of a daily press briefing. The DPRK is the acronym for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
China, the North's communist ally, has been seeking to revive the six-way talks on Pyongyang's nuclear program. The negotiations also involve South Korea, Japan and Russia.
The Obama administration, however, has remained firm that Pyongyang should first demonstrate its willingness for "authentic and credible" negotiations.
U.S. officials believe the North is trying to use any dialogue to gain recognition as a nuclear state, not for denuclearization. (Yonhap News)
