United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice concluded her 20-hour visit to Beijing and left here for Thailand Sunday afternoon to continue her Asian tour.

This is Rice's second China trip as a guest of Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing in some three months since she took office as top US diplomat in January.

At a news briefing here Sunday afternoon, Rice expressed her appreciation for China's "very active role" in restarting the six-party talks. But, she noted that it is only a start.

"It is not the goal of the talks to have talks; it is the goal of the talks to have progress," she said.

During her stay in Beijing, Rice met respectively with Chinese President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao, State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan and Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing.

Both sides considered that the resumption of the six-party talks "an important first step" on solving the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue.

China is the first stop of Rice's four-nation Asian trip that will also take her to Thailand, the Republic of Korea and Japan. Rice visited China in February 2002 and July 2004 respectively, as the US national security adviser. She made her first tour to China as the US Secretary of State last March.

Source: Xinhua