(2nd LD) N. Korea says sanctions must be lifted before nuclear talks resume

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SEOUL, Jan. 18 (Yonhap) -- North Korea reaffirmed its stance Monday that it will
not return to international negotiations on its nuclear arms programs unless
sanctions on it are removed.
The statement by an unnamed Foreign Ministry spokesperson came less than a week
after the U.S. said the removal of sanctions can only be considered after the
North returns to the six-nation talks that also group South Korea, Japan, China
and Russia.
If North Korea "goes out for the six-party talks, remaining subjected to the
sanctions, such talks will not prove to be equal," it said in the statement
carried by its official Korean Central News Agency, pledging it will "never allow
this to happen."
North Korea, which last week proposed talks on formally ending the 1950-53 Korean
War, also reiterated its demand that they be started to help move forward the
six-party talks.
"There will be a starting point of confidence building only if the parties
concerned sit at a negotiating table for concluding a peace treaty," it said.
It added that a peace treaty to formally close the war that involved the U.S. on
the South Korean side and China on the North Korean side will help "put an end to
such vicious cycle of distrust and build confidence to push forward
denuclearization."
North Korea "is not opposed to the six-party talks and has no ground whatsoever
to delay them," it said.
Following a trip to Pyongyang by U.S. President Barack Obama's special envoy on
North Korea in December, the communist state said it was willing to return to the
six-nation talks but did not say when.
The country had declared the talks "dead" after it drew U.N. condemnation for its
rocket launch seen as a test of ballistic missile technology in April last year.
North Korea conducted its second nuclear test less than two weeks later.
Defending its rocket launch as an act of sovereignty, North Korea said it is
"nonsensical" to "sit at the negotiating table with those countries that violate
its sovereignty."
"Such extreme encroachment upon the sovereignty of a country" has compelled the
North to go ahead with its nuclear test, it said.
"If the six-party talks are to take place again, it is necessary to seek whatever
way of removing the factor of torpedoing them," it said.
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