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China supports inter-Korean summit

BEIJING: China said on Monday it "welcomed and supported" the agreement by North and South Korea to hold a historic summit and expressed hopes the meeting in June would produce positive results.

"It has been China's consistent stance to to preserve and advance peace and stability on the Korean peninsula," a Foreign Ministry statement said.

"We have always advocated and supported that both sides on the Korean peninsula improve relations through dialogue, achieve reconciliation and ultimately reunification," it said.

China, one of few countries to have close ties to both capitalist South Korea and communist North Korea, has played host to a series of official and unofficial contacts between the two sides in recent years.

The agreement paving the way for the summit was signed on Saturday after talks in Beijing and Shanghai, according to Seoul.-Reuters