South Korean air force personnel participate in a drill at an air base in Chungju, yesterday.
SEOUL: North Korea yesterday offered the US and South Korea a list of conditions for talks, including the lifting of UN sanctions, signalling a possible end to weeks of warlike hostility on the Korean peninsula.
The North Korea’s top military body also said the denuclearisation of the peninsula would begin when the US removed nuclear weapons Pyongyang says Washington has deployed in the region.
The move is likely a sop to the North’s only major backer, China, which signalled its growing unease over the escalation of threats, and said talks were the only correct way to end the tension.
“Dialogue and war cannot co-exist,” the North’s National Defence Commission said in the statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.
“If the US and the puppet South have the slightest desire to avoid the sledge-hammer blow of our army and people ... and truly wish dialogue and negotiations, they must make the resolute decision,” it said.
The commission said UN Security Council sanctions, “fabricated with unjust reasons” must be withdrawn. “They should bear in mind that doing so would be a token of goodwill towards the DPRK,” it said. The North’s official name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“The denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula can begin with the removal of the nuclear war tools dragged in by the US and it can lead to global nuclear disarmament,” it added. It called for an end to military exercises such as the annual US-South Korean drills that began in March and end this month.
The US has offered talks, but on the pre-condition that they lead to North Korea abandoning its nuclear weapons ambitions. North Korea deems its nuclear arms a “treasured sword” and has vowed never to give them up.
South Korea has also proposed talks Pyongyang rejected as an insincere move.
North Korea stepped up its defiance of UN Security Council resolutions in December when it launched a rocket it said put a scientific satellite in orbit. Critics said the launch aimed to nurture technology needed to deliver a nuclear warhead on a long-range missile.
That was followed in February by its third test of a nuclear weapon. That triggered new UN sanctions in March, toughening existing measures, which led to intensification of North Korean threats of nuclear strikes against South Korea and the US.
South Korea saw the demands as “regretful” and “cliched” and called on North Korea to withdraw them.
The US remains open to “authentic and credible” negotiations with North Korea, but the country would first need to show it is serious about abandoning its nuclear ambitions, a White House spokesman said.
“So far, we have not seen that,” Josh Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One. “The belligerent actions and words that we’ve seen emanating from the North Korean regime actually indicate the opposite.”
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged North Korea to “seriously” consider an offer of dialogue from the South concerning the future of the closed Kaesong industrial zone.
North Korea has blocked access to Kaesong, 10km inside its border since April 3.
He also vowed to advance “meaningful dialogue” between the two Koreas.
Agencies
