Seoul must stop ‘hostilities’ if it wants formal end to war: Pyongyang

Seoul, Sep 24 (EFE).- A proposal by Seoul to formally declare peace on the Korean Peninsula was “admirable,” but first South Korea must abandon its “hostile policies” towards the Pyongyang, Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korea’s leader, said Friday.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in earlier this week proposed at the United Nations to declare a formal end to the 1950-53 war on the Korean Peninsula, which would also involve the United States and possibly China.

In a statement published Friday by the state Korean Central News Agency, Kim said that “the declaration of the termination of the war is an interesting and an admirable idea,” but that “double-dealing standards, prejudice and hostile policies toward the DPRK and speeches and acts antagonizing us persist.”

“Under such situation it does not make any sense to declare the end of the war with all the things, which may become a seed of a war between parties that had been at odds for more than half a century, left intact,” said Kim, the vice department director of the Central Committee of Pyongyang’s sole party.

Kim added that Pyongyang has a “willingness to keep our close contacts with the South again and have constructive discussion with it about the restoration and development of the bilateral relations if it is careful about its future language and not hostile toward us.”

Her message came hours after another issued by the North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Ri Thae-song, in which he considered a peace treaty “premature.”

Tension has increased on the peninsula in the last month.

Pyongyang in August cut communication with Seoul again in protest of the South’s annual joint military exercises with the US, and the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that the regime has reactivated key nuclear facilities this year.

Last week, North Korea tested several missiles, to which the South responded by testing a submarine-launched ballistic missile and announcing new military developments that show a new weapons escalation on the peninsula.

In turn, Pyongyang has so far ignored Washington’s proposals to resume dialogue on denuclearization, stalled since 2019. EFE

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