End of war not a gift: official DPRK news agency
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E-mail Xinhua, October 2, 2018
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) will not hope for the end of the war on the Korean Peninsula if the United States does not want it, and the issue should not be used as a "bargaining chip" in denuclearization talks, the official DPRK news agency said Tuesday.
"Now that the DPRK and the U.S. are aspiring after the establishment of new relations true to the spirit of the June 12 DPRK-U.S. joint statement, it is quite right to put an end to the belligerent relations between them," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a commentary.
"But, if the U.S. doesn't want the end of war, the DPRK will also not particularly hope for it," it added.
Top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump met in Singapore on June 12 for a landmark summit, the first between incumbent leaders of both countries since the 1950-53 Korean War.
The hard-won meeting was widely seen as a historic step to ease tensions over the nuclear issue and push the peninsula towards lasting peace.
However, the United States so far seems to have only offered warm words instead of practical actions to a denuclearized peninsula.
"The end of war, which meets the interests of not only the DPRK and the U.S. but also the countries in Northeast Asia wanting peace of the Korean Peninsula, is not just a gift from a man to another at all," the KCNA said.
At the UN General Assembly on Saturday in New York, DPRK Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho demanded the United States take steps to secure Pyongyang's trust before its denuclearization.
Even before the Singapore summit, the DPRK took significant good-will measures such as stopping nuclear and ballistic missile tests and dismantling a nuclear test site, he said.
"However, we do not see any corresponding response from the U.S. On the contrary, instead of addressing our concern for the absence of peace regime in the Korean Peninsula, the U.S. insists on 'denuclearization-first' and increases the level of pressure by sanctions to achieve their purpose in a coercive manner, and even objecting the 'declaration of the end of war'," Ri said.
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