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Koreas - China

China calls for calm from both Koreas

China’s foreign minister has called on North and South Korea to avoid provoking each other after a week of heightened tensions following the North’s deadly attack on the South. This comes as the US and South Korea wrap up four days of war games in the Yellow Sea. 

REUTERS/Jo Bo-hee/Yonhap
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"The parties concerned should keep calm and exercise restraint, and work to bring the situation back onto the track of dialogue and negotiation," Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said Wednesday, quoted by the state-run Xinhua news agency.

China has held back from joining international criticism of North Korea, its historical ally, after last week’s shelling of a South Korean island, killing two marines and two civilians.

Tensions were raised when the US and South Korea started four days of war games in the Yellow Sea just days after the artillery strike, intended as a show of force to North Korea.

Pyongyang warned that the exercises brought the Koreas closer to “the brink of war”.

Their biggest-ever joint exercise between the two navies, involving ten warships and 7,300 crew, wrapped up Wednesday. The allies said they were planning more military exercises this month, or in early 2011.

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