Seoul rejects North Korean peace overture

Jan 12, 2010, 13:22 GMT

Seoul - South Korea on Tuesday rejected an overture by Pyongyang to hold talks over a formal peace treaty for the Korean Peninsula.

The Foreign Ministry stressed that the parties could only engage in talks over a peace treaty if there was progress on denuclearization issues and the if Stalinist state returned the six-party talks, a stalled international effort to end its nuclear weapons programme.

North Korea on Monday called for a formal peace treaty to replace the truce that ended the Korean War in 1952. The two Koreas technically remain at a state of war.

The Foreign Ministry in Pyongyang, mainly addressing Washington, said a peace treaty would end hostile relations between North Korea and the United States and aid denuclearization efforts on the Korean Peninsula.

The issue could be discussed either within the six-party talks, which also include South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China, or in a separate forum. However, international sanctions against North Korea had to be lifted before Pyongyang was ready to discuss peace, the ministry added.

North Korea abandoned the six-party talks in April 2009 but recently indicated willingness to return to the talks.

However, South Korean officials said a resumption of the talks was not imminent as there has been 'no tangible progress' since a visit by Washington's special representative to Pyongyang in December, the Yonhap news agency reported.

Furthermore, China, the host of the six-party talks, was in the process of replacing its top nuclear envoy, making an imminent resumption unlikely, Yonhap said.