The phone call is the first publicized direct contact between the leaders of the world's largest economy and the world's most populous nation since the pair met in London April 1 ahead of an economic summit, and the first since a renewed flare-up in China-US naval tensions.

The White House said the leaders "discussed regional security issues," but it avoided specifying whether Obama and Hu waded into Friday's encounter in waters off the Chinese mainland between Chinese fishing boats and a US Navy observation vessel -- the latest in a series of high-seas standoffs this year which have put the two militaries on edge.

"President Obama described to President Hu his concerns over recent actions by North Korea and threats to Pakistan by militant extremists and terrorists," the White House said in a readout of the discussion.

It added that the leaders "agreed to stay in close touch with each other on these important issues."

In London Obama accepted an invitation to visit China in the second half of the year.

The call came on the day Washington was dispatching its special envoy on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, to Beijing and then to Seoul, Tokyo and Moscow in a bid to salvage stalled six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear disarmament and bring the isolated Stalinist regime back to the negotiating table.

The United States has been involved in negotiations with the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia aimed at scrapping North Korea's nuclear program in exchange for energy aid under a landmark six-party agreement signed in 2007.

The talks deadlocked late last year in a dispute with Pyongyang over how to verify disarmament, before taking a sharp turn for the worse with North Korea's launch of a long-range rocket on April 5.

Pyongyang said it put a peaceful satellite into orbit but the United States, South Korea and Japan said it staged a disguised missile test.

The communist state reacted angrily to UN condemnation of the launch, announcing it was quitting the disarmament talks and restarting the plants at the Yongbyon nuclear facility which produced weapons-grade plutonium.

China, host of the talks, is North Korea's closest political and economic ally.

The Obama-Hu call also fell on the day of a trilateral summit in Washington between Obama, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan's Asif Ali Zardari in which the leaders forged a new front against extremists.

Obama has put Pakistan at the heart of the fight against terrorism and Al-Qaeda, but cooperation with China, which has close ties with Pakistan and borders Afghanistan, has been seen as important to the new US plan to root out extremism in the region.

Richard Holbrooke, US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, visited Beijing last month where he held talks with Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on the Pakistan situation, which Holbrooke described as "a common danger" shared by Beijing and Washington.

Despite vows to cooperate on Pakistan, ties between Beijing and Washington have frayed over their sea standoffs.

Beijing said Wednesday a US naval vessel, the USNS Victorious, involved in an incident with Chinese fishing boats in the Yellow Sea had violated maritime law, and urged the United States to take steps to avoid a repetition.

That incident followed two tense standoffs between US and Chinese vessels in the South China Sea in March, which triggered accusations by the United States that China was behaving in an "aggressive" manner.

Share This Article With Planet Earth

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Related Links
Learn about nuclear weapons doctrine and defense at SpaceWar.com
Learn about missile defense at SpaceWar.com
All about missiles at SpaceWar.com
Learn about the Superpowers of the 21st Century at SpaceWar.com

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News