North Korea proposed concluding a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War this year, saying yesterday that improved ties with the US and an end to sanctions are conditions for resuming international negotiations aimed at ridding it of nuclear weapons.
The North’s call came after US President Barack Obama’s special envoy for human rights in North Korea said during a visit to Seoul yesterday that any normalization of relations depends on an improvement in what he called the North’s “appalling” human rights situation.
The North’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the resumption of the six-nation nuclear talks depends on building confidence between Pyongyang and Washington and called for a peace treaty, which it has long demanded.
Before nuclear talks can get back on track, North Korea and the US must improve their relationship by beginning talks aimed at signing a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War, the lack of which it called a “root cause of the hostile relations,” the ministry said in a statement.
The war ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, thus leaving the peninsula technically at war. North Korea, the US-led United Nations Command and China are signatories to the ceasefire.
The statement called for a peace treaty to be concluded this year, which it emphasized marks the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War.
North Korea pulled out of the six-party nuclear talks with the US, China, South Korea, Russia and Japan last year after international criticism of a long-range rocket launch that drew UN sanctions. It later conducted its second underground nuclear test.
“This appears to be an overture by the North Koreans to try and, in their own way, break through the logjam that we have seen for more than a year now in the talks,” said Peter Beck, an expert on North Korea.
The proposal comes after a landmark visit to the North last month by Stephen Bosworth, Obama’s special envoy for the country. Bosworth said after his trip that Pyongyang agreed on the necessity of returning to the talks, though it had not said when it would rejoin them. He said discussion of a peace treaty could take place within the six-party talks framework.
Robert King, Obama’s special envoy for human rights in North Korea, harshly criticized the country yesterday and said that the situation is preventing a normalization of relations.
“It’s one of the worst places in terms of lack of human rights,” King told reporters after meeting South Korea’s foreign minister. “The situation is appalling.”
“Improved relations between the United States and North Korea will have to involve greater respect for human rights by North Korea,” he said.
North Korea has long been regarded as having one of the world’s worst human rights records. The country holds some 154,000 political prisoners in six large camps across the country, South Korea estimates.
Pyongyang denies the existence of prison camps.
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