North Korea sets preconditions for peace talks

Updated - November 16, 2021 08:15 pm IST - PYONGYANG, North Korea

North Korea on Thursday demanded the withdrawal of U.N. sanctions and the end of U.S. - South Korea military drills as conditions for resuming talks meant to defuse tension on the Korean Peninsula.

The statement from the Policy Department of the National Defense Commission, the country’s top governing body, came four days after Pyongyang rejected Seoul’s latest dialogue offer as ‘insincere’. The U.S. says it is prepared to talk to the North but Pyongyang must first bring down tensions and honour previous disarmament agreements.

“Dialogue can never go with war actions,” said the statement, which was carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Before the talks can resume, the statement said the U.S. must also withdraw all nuclear weapons assets from South Korea and the region. It said South Korea, for its part, must stop all anti-North Korea talks, such as its recent announcement blaming Pyongyang for a cyber-attack that shut down tens of thousands of computers and servers at South Korean broadcasters and banks last month. North Korea has denied responsibility for the cyber-attack.

Later Thursday, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry dismissed the North’s demand as illogical. “We again strongly urge North Korea to stop this kind of insistence that we cannot totally understand and go down the path of a wise choice,” spokesman Cho Tai-young told reporters.

In recent weeks, North Korea has ratcheted up tension on the divided peninsula, threatening to attack the U.S. and South Korea over the military drills and sanctions imposed for its February nuclear test. Pyongyang calls the annual drills a rehearsal for invasion. South Korean officials have also said the North is poised to test-fire a medium-range missile capable of reaching the American territory of Guam.

The ongoing annual drills, called Foal Eagle, are to finish at the end of April. Seoul and Washington officials say they are defensive in nature, and insist they have no intentions of invading the North.

The U.S. has about 28,500 troops in South Korea to help deter potential aggression from North Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.