North Korea demands halt to military exercise, peace treaty
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signs a document regarding the test of a hydrogen bomb, in this file still image taken from KRT video and released by Yonhap on January 6, 2016.
North Korea on Saturday demanded the conclusion of a peace treaty with the United States and a halt to US military exercises with South Korea to end its nuclear tests.
But US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Pyongyang needed to demonstrate by its action that it was serious about denuclearization for any dialogues to start.
“We now have unfortunately a decade during which North Korea has totally reversed its obligations to international community, when it comes to missile and nuclear programs,” Blinken told a news conference in Tokyo.
“So it’s very hard to take any of their overtures very seriously, particularly in the wake of their fourth nuclear test,” he said, after meeting his counterpart from Japan and South Korea. North Korea said on Jan. 6 it had tested a hydrogen bomb, provoking condemnation from its neighbors and the US.
The state has long sought a peace treaty with the US as well as an end to the exercises by South Korea and the United States, which has about 28,500 troops based in S. Korea.
“Still valid are all proposals for preserving peace and stability on the peninsula and in Northeast Asia including the ones for ceasing our nuclear test and the conclusion of a peace treaty in return for US halt to joint military exercises,” North Korea’s official KCNA news agency cited a spokesman for the country’s Foreign Ministry as saying.
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