SEOUL, Dec. 11 (Yonhap) -- North Korea appears to have made little concessions when a top Chinese official visited Pyongyang earlier this week on an apparent mission to defuse tensions over the North's recent artillery attack on a South Korean island, a Seoul official said Saturday.

   Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang on Thursday for discussions on matters of mutual concern that outside analysts believe included the Nov. 23 attack. China briefed Seoul on the outcome of the Kim-Dai meeting through diplomatic channels on Friday night, said the official, requesting anonymity.

   "I can't speak in detail, but regarding North Korea's position, it appears that there is little difference in the position that it has been sticking to," the official said, declining to provide further specifics.

   Beijing has been under growing international pressure to exercise its influence to discourage North Korea from further provocations.

   The North's shelling of South Korea's Yeonpyeong island left four people killed, including two civilians.

   China's Xinhua News Agency gave few details of the Dai-Kim meeting, saying only that the two sides "reached consensus on bilateral relations and the situation on the Korean Peninsula after candid and in-depth talks."

   Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) provided no details of their discussions, either.

   North Korea has shirked responsibility for the attack on a fishing village near the Yellow Sea border between the two sides, saying the South's military exercises in the border waters prompted it to respond, a claim the South has flatly rejected.

   China is considered to have the strongest influence over Pyongyang as the impoverished nation's biggest provider of food and energy aid as well as diplomatic support. But it has been unwilling to use the leverage apparently out of concern that instability in the North could hurt its economic and political interests, experts say.

   Meanwhile, North Korea accused South Korea and the United States of scheming a war against it and vowed to retaliate mercilessly.

   "The army and people of the DPRK (North Korea) are ready for both escalated war and an all-out war," said a statement issued by the North's Peace Committee, a quasi-party agency. "They will deal merciless retaliatory blows at the provocateurs and aggressors and blow up their citadels and bases."

   Earlier this week, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, met in Seoul with his South Korean counterpart, Gen. Han Min-koo and agreed to hold more joint drills and strengthen joint capabilities to respond to future North Korean provocations.

   The North Korean statement, carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), denounced Mullen's trip to Seoul as aimed at drafting "a very dangerous war scenario" against Pyongyang.

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