Japan and the United States insisted on a UN Security Council voted yesterday on a resolution condemning North Korea's barrage of missile launches amid signs of a compromise with China.
The reclusive Stalinist state has rebuffed worldwide criticism of its July 5 missile tests and has resisted pressure to return to talks on winding up its nuclear arms programme, but its neighbours pressed on with diplomacy to resolve the crisis.
Kyodo news agency - quoting a Japanese minister in Beijing - said that a Chinese government delegation had returned from Pyongyang carrying a message from North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, whose closest ally is China. It gave no details.
South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Lee Kyu-hyung arrived in Beijing yesterday for talks with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, who was part of the mission to North Korea.
Seoul's diplomatic effort came after Pyongyang stormed out of cabinet-level talks with the South on Thursday.
Meanwhile, South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said Kim had called the country's 30 top foreign envoys back to Pyongyang for a meeting next week, the first of its kind in five years.
Amid a flurry of negotiations at the United Nations on Friday, US Ambassador John Bolton told reporters his instructions were to get a vote by yesterday and Japanese Ambassador Kenzo Oshima said Japan stood on the same ground.
Japan produced a new draft resolution that sought to bridge its differences with China. Beijing's ambassador said he would still veto it without further changes, which many diplomats expect when council members resumed negotiations last night.
The key obstacle is whether the resolution should invoke Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which can lay the groundwork for military force. But China and Russia, who on Wednesday introduced a rival draft, reject any mention of Chapter 7.
Bolton indicated he was open to other wording that would make the resolution mandatory as Chapter 7 does, but Japan's Oshima was silent and his last draft still included Chapter 7.
When Britain and France suggested alternative wording, Chinese ambassador Wang Guangya was in agreement, and said he would check with his government, diplomats told Reuters.
The Security Council has wrangled for days over the response to North Korea's seven missile tests, which raised international tensions, mainly because of its development of nuclear weapons.
Japan wanted to have the resolution adopted before a summit of the Group of Eight industrialised nations, which opened yesterday and is expected to issue a statement on North Korea.
But Wang said "the important thing is not the deadline. It is the unity of the council."
"There are too many fires there. We don't need to put oil on all those fires," he said, in an apparent reference to the Middle East crisis and debates over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
The latest text circulated by Japan and its supporters condemns the missile launches and demands that North Korea suspend "all activities" on its ballistic missiles.