China has always stood for and been actively dedicated to the maintenance of peace and stability on the peninsula, Zhang Yan told a Board of Governors meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The denuclearization there is in conformity with the common interests of the international community, said Zhang.

He said recent developments around the nuclear issue of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) have deeply concerned China and the international community.

He expressed the hope that parties concerned will exercise restraint and endeavor to solve related problems through peaceful and diplomatic means on the basis of sincerity, equality and mutual respect.

The IAEA Board of Governors meeting, which opened here Thursday, reached a resolution urging the DPRK to give up any nuclear weapons program expeditiously and in a verifiable manner.

It urged the DPRK to provide the agency with all relevant information concerning the reported uranium enrichment program andother relevant nuclear fuel cycle facilities.

US officials said last month that the DPRK admitted it was pursuing a nuclear arms program in violation of a landmark 1994 agreement to freeze work on nuclear weapons in exchange for oil shipments and two light-water nuclear reactors that cannot be easily used to produce weapons-grade material.

The Korean Peninsula Nuclear Development Organization, which has been building the reactors and providing 500,000 tons of heavyfuel oil a year to Pyongyang has decided to suspend fuel oil deliveries as from December until the DPRK agrees to stop its nuclear program.

(Xinhua News Agency December 2, 2002)