Is President Park’s Call for Five Party Talks An Attempt to Pressure China?

It appears that the US and South Korea has finally come to the conclusion that the country they need to be negotiating with to halt the Kim regime’s nuclear program is not North Korea, but instead China:

Since President Park Geun-hye expressed skepticism over the efficacy of the long-stalled six-party talks and called for five-party talks — excluding North Korea — last Friday, the allies and China seem to be split with Beijing in favor of keeping the six-party format intact.

The talks involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia have not been held since late 2008. Park thus proposed exploring “various and creative ways” including holding the five-party talks to tackle the North’s nuclear conundrum, her aides said.

Washington has offered support for Park’s proposal for the five-party talks, while Beijing urged the early resumption of the six-party talks that it has hosted — a move that observers say displayed its disapproval of the five-way formula.

“The United States supports President Park’s call for a five-party meeting. We believe coordination with the other parties would be a useful step in our ongoing efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula through credible and authentic negotiations,” a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Seoul said in a statement to the local media.  [Korea Herald]

You can read the rest at the link.