North Korea called Monday for talks on a treaty to formally end the Korean War, saying it wants better ties with the United States and an end to sanctions before pushing ahead with nuclear disarmament. The foreign ministry statement was the first time the North has publicly stated its position on the disarmament negotiations since US envoy Stephen Bosworth visited Pyongyang last month.
Bosworth was trying to persuade the communist state to return to the six-nation talks it abandoned last April, a month before staging a second nuclear test. No firm agreement was reached. Monday's statement said "repeated frustrations and failures" in the talks - which began in 2003 and group the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan - showed the need to build confidence among parties concerned.
"If confidence is to be built between the DPRK (North Korea) and the US, it is essential to conclude a peace treaty for terminating the state of war, a root cause of the hostile relations, to begin with," said the statement carried by official media. The North has long called for a treaty to officially end the 1950-53 conflict, which terminated only with an armistice, leaving the parties technically at war. A US-led United Nations force fought for the South and China backed the communist North. Six-party agreements in 2005 and 2007 envisage talks on a peace treaty but only in return for full denuclearisation. The North said the peace pact should come first.