China calls for restraint after DPRK's missile launches

China called for restraint and an early resumption of the Six-Party Talks after the Democratic People's Republic of Korea launched two missiles on Wednesday.

The first of the two missiles, which are suspected Musudans, was said to have failed, but the second missile was said to have flown about 400 kilometers, the Associated Press reported.

This is the latest of a string of missile launches the DPRK has conducted this year.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying reiterated on Thursday that relevant parties should avoid taking actions that will escalate tensions in a time when the situation of the Korean Peninsula is complicated and sensitive.

Hua said China hopes all relevant parties will work together to create favorable conditions for an early resumption of the Six-Party Talks.

The missile launches took place the same day when the 26th Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue opened in Beijing.

The forum, which was founded in 1993, lasted two days and attracted some 90 people, including officials from all six countries of the Six-Party Talks.

China's Special Representative for the Korean Peninsula Affairs Wu Daiwei called on the forum for all relevant parties to abandon "Cold War mindset", and stick to realizing denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, maintaining peace and stability of the peninsula as well as solving the problem through dialogue and negotiation, according to a news release provided by the China Institute of International Studies, a co-organizer of the event.

Wu said the Cold War mindset is still dominating the development of the peninsula's situation, disrupting peace and development of not only the peninsula itself, but also the Northeast Asia.

Susan Shirk, director emeritus of the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, which is the other organizer of the forum, said she hopes the forum made a positive contribution to finding ways of addressing the security dilemmas in the region, but doesn't expect that the Six-Party Talks will resume any time soon.

Besides the Korean Peninsula issue, discussions on the forum also covered other topics such as China-US relations and missile deployments and missile defenses in Northeast Asia, Shirk said.