CHINA dismissed a 20-nation summit held in Vancouver on the North Korea nuclear crisis this week as “illegitimate” because Beijing and Moscow were not invited.

“To convene a meeting where major parties to the Korean peninsula nuclear issue are not represented will not help promote an appropriate resolution over the issue,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said today.

Only countries that supported Seoul during the Korean war in the 1950s were invited to the summit in the western Canadian city yesterday.