N. Korean premier holds talks with Chinese president

(ATTN: UPDATES with Choe's tour in Beijing; CORRECTS lead sequence) BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Yonhap) -- North Korean Premier Choe Yong-rim met with Chinese President Hu Jintao on Tuesday as the two countries called for strengthened bilateral cooperation. Hu expressed hope that Choe's trip would deepen friendship between the two neighbors and facilitate cooperation. Still, details of their meeting were not immediately available. Choe and his delegation toured a chemical industrial machine company, state museum and other places in Beijing, the KCNA reported from the Chinese capital, without mentioning Choe's meeting with Hu. Choe arrived in Beijing on Monday for an official goodwill trip, which comes a month after North Korean leader Kim Jong-il toured northeast China on his way home from a rare trip to Russia. In May, Kim also traveled across China and met with Hu to discuss expanding bilateral economic and political relations. China is the North's key ally, as well as its economic benefactor and diplomatic supporter. On Monday, Choe met with his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao and they pledged to promote trade, investment and economic cooperation. Wen hailed the North's achievements in developing its economy and vowed that Beijing would continue to offer assistance within its capability, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported Tuesday. He also called on the two sides to speed up mutually beneficial cooperation in fields such as trade, investment, infrastructure, natural resources and agriculture, the report said. Choe said Pyongyang welcomes Chinese enterprises to invest and conduct operations in the country. Choe and Wen also called for the resumption of long-stalled talks on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programs. Last week, the nuclear envoys of South and North Korea held their second meeting in Beijing in as many months, but they failed to agree on the terms of re-starting the disarmament talks. North Korea calls for an early resumption of the talks without any pre-conditions but Seoul and Washington maintain that Pyongyang halt its uranium enrichment program and allow U.N. inspectors back into the country before resuming the talks. North Korea expelled U.N. nuclear monitors at the height of the current nuclear crisis in 2002. The six-party talks, which involve the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia, were last held in Beijing in late 2008.