Striking a peace treaty with the US to replace the armistice that ended the 1950-1953 Korean War would resolve the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula, a spokesman for North Korea's Foreign Ministry said today.
The comments, carried by the North's official KCNA news agency, came before a meeting of regional powers in Beijing next Tuesday for talks aimed at dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programmes in exchange for security guarantees and economic assistance.
"Replacing the ceasefire mechanism by a peace mechanism on the Korean peninsula would lead to putting an end to the US hostile policy toward the DPRK, which spawned the nuclear issue and the former's nuclear threat," a foreign ministry spokesman said in the report carried by KCNA.
He said this would "automatically result in the denuclearisation of the peninsula".
The Korean War ended in an armistice and not a full peace treaty. The main countries involved in the Korean War- the United States, China and North and South Korea - last held talks on a peace treaty in Geneva beginning in late 1997.
US officials have said they are looking for North Korea to respond to a security guarantee and energy aid offer made at the last round of the six-party nuclear talks in June 2004.
They have said their top priority is for North Korea to dismantle its nuclear programmes and then Washington could discuss other issues, such as normalising ties.