BEIJING: Two top US envoys sat down for fence-mending talks with China today pressing for cooperation on Iran and to overcome a setback in relations over key issues such as trade, Tibet and Taiwan. US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and senior White House Asia adviser Jeffrey Bader were in Beijing to put ties back on track, following the recent setbacks, and also as Washington tries to bring North Korea in line. The three-day mission comes as Washington and Beijing are trying to bring Pyongyang back to stalled nuclear disarmament talks, and to resolve a standoff with Tehran over its suspected atomic programme. It also comes ahead of a series of key meetings, including a global nuclear security summit in Washington in April, and the next round of Sino-US “Strategic and Economic Dialogue,” which last took place in July 2009. “If this (visit) suggests that we are refocusing on the future and the important issues that we can work on together, I think we are encouraged by this,” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said yesterday. “This is expressly why we sought this meeting — to be able to refocus on very specific issues, not the least of which is obviously our joint concerns about Iran,” Crowley said. Neither side has offered any details about the Beijing schedule of Steinberg and Bader, who is US President Barack Obama’s top Asia adviser on the National Security Council. The pair will head to Tokyo tomorrow. But the agenda looks set to be chock-full, with a wide range of bilateral concerns, along with the North Korea and Iran dossiers, all up for discussion. Washington and Beijing have been on the same page with respect to Pyongyang, pushing for an early resumption of the six-party talks which the North left in April last year. But China, which holds veto power on the UN Security Council, has hesitated in supporting tougher US-backed sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme, which Western nations suspect is an effort to build atomic weapons. In a commentary carried in the state China Daily, two researchers from Renmin University voiced optimism that relations were about to rebound from the low point seen in early 2010. “Beijing and Washington have shown restraint in the most recent diplomatic spat and there is room for reconciliation,” said the researchers, Jin Canrong and Dong Chunling.