Beijing, Apr. 18 : China wants the United States to engage the Democratic People''s Republic of Korea (DPRK) directly to ease escalating tensions over Pyongyang''s renewed nuclear weapons activities.

The China Daily quoted Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi as saying in an interview with Japan''s Nikkei newspaper on Friday that the Six-Party Talks hosted by Beijing remain the way forward in making the Korean Peninsula nuclear free, despite Pyongyang''s declaration this week that it would boycott the talks for good and resume work at shuttered atomic facilities.

Yang hoped that the Obama administration would deal directly with Pyongyang.

"(China) hopes for an improvement and development of US-DPRK relations. It is a relationship that will mutually help both sides whether it takes a bilateral or multilateral route," Yang, a former ambassador to Washington, said.

China has hosted the six-nation negotiations since 2003. The talks bring together the DPRK, the Republic of Korea (ROK), the United States, Japan, Russia and China.

Chinese analysts have said Beijing believes the key to defusing the standoff is a fresh proposal to Pyongyang from Washington.

On Monday, China backed a United Nations Security Council statement condemning DPRK''s recent rocket launch, which Pyongyang said was for sending a communications satellite. Other countries such as Japan and the US, however, believed it was the test of a long-range missile.

Yang also repeated calls for calm.

"It is appropriate for the DPRK to explain why it took the action," he told the Nikkei. (ANI)