SEOUL (Dispatches) - The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Friday rejected South Korean President Moon Jae-In’s proposal to declare a formal end to the 1950-53 war, saying such a declaration would be meaningless if the U.S. “hostile policy” remains unchanged.
The DPRK’s Vice Foreign Minister Ri Thae Song voiced the rejection in a statement, calling the declaration in the current situation as “something premature”, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
Earlier this week, Moon in his United Nations speech proposed the two Koreas and the United States declare a formal end to the 1950-53 war.
Ri in his statement again urged Washington to change its hostile policy towards Pyongyang, saying the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile test-launch in Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in February and August, the hasty declaration of the termination of the US-South Korea missile guidelines in May and the U.S. approval of the sale of military hardware worth billions of dollars to Japan and South Korea “are all targeted against the DPRK.”
“We are also following with alert the US recent decision to transfer a nuclear-powered submarine building technology to Australia,” he added.
Nothing will change as long as the political circumstances around the DPRK remains unchanged and the U.S. hostile policy is not shifted, although the termination of the war has been declared hundreds of times, Ri said.