SEOUL (AFP) — A visiting Chinese envoy held talks Monday with South Korean officials about a fire which killed 12 Chinese nationals, and caused delays in a North Korean nuclear disarmament deal.
Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who is visiting as President Hu Jintao's special envoy, met Foreign Minister Song Min-Soon.
Song again offered condolences for last week's inferno at a cold-storage depot which killed 40 workers, 12 of them Chinese.
"The South Korean government will do its best to settle the situation after the incident," his office said he told Wang.
Wang described the blaze at Icheon 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of Seoul as a "heartsickening incident."
"Many Chinese people come to South Korea for work and they contribute to the development of South Korea," he said before the closed-door talks with Song began.
The families of the dead will receive average compensation of 240 million won (256,000 dollars) from the depot owner, who faces legal action for allegedly violating safety laws, Yonhap news agency quoted provincial police as saying.
Song and Wang also discussed North Korea's delay in providing a full declaration of all its nuclear programmes, officials said.
The North missed a year-end deadline to disable its main atomic plants and declare all its nuclear programmes under a six-nation pact.
Song told journalists he wants the six-party talks to resume soon, preferably before mid-February. "The Chinese side conveyed its willingness to make efforts," he said.
China hosts the talks which began in 2003 and also group the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia. They have offered the North major economic aid and diplomatic benefits in return for denuclearisation.
Wang later met president-elect Lee Myung-Bak, who takes office on February 25, and delivered an invitation from Hu to visit Beijing soon.
"The president hopes to meet you in Beijing soon to discuss ways of seeking a stronger relationship between the two countries," Wang said.
Lee expressed gratitude for the invitation and thanked the Chinese government for its efforts to end the nuclear impasse.
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