N. Korea steps up call for peace treaty amid seething border tension

SEOUL, Jan. 27 (Yonhap) -- North Korea stepped up its demand Wednesday for a
peace treaty to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War amid tension that spiked
after it fired artillery into its waters near the western sea border with South
Korea.

The firing, which prompted the South to respond with warning shots, occurred near
the Northern Limit Line that has served as a de facto boundary between the
divided states, according to South Korean defense officials. Their navies clashed
in a brief gunfight there in November last year -- the third such incident since
1999.
Analysts point out that the latest act of saber-rattling that comes after North
Korea threatened a "sacred" attack against the South could be aimed at pressuring
the U.S. and South Korea into embracing the North Korean demand for a peace
treaty.
The Minju Chosun, a paper run by the North's cabinet, said a peace treaty is also
essential for guaranteeing the success of six-nation talks on its nuclear arms
programs, and described the U.S. call for the North to first rejoin the talks as
"an act of insolence."
"If a peace treaty is forged between the U.S. and North Korea and trust is built,
measures for lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula will be created, removing the
threat of war," it said.
"The reality shows that trust is needed to resolve the nuclear problem and other
various problems," it said.
The commentary, dated Tuesday but released a day later, also reaffirmed the North
Korean stance that the country will not return to the talks -- which also include
South Korea, the U.S., Japan, Russia and China -- until sanctions on the country
are removed.
The U.S. demand that the North first return to the talks "is an act of insolence
that belies common sense," it said in the statement carried by the official
Korean Central News Agency, monitored in Seoul.
In a New Year's message, Pyongyang said it would seek to improve relations with
the outside world, including the South, marking a reversal from its earlier
behavior that led to its second nuclear test in May last year. The test, which
followed a long-range rocket launch, caused the U.N. to toughen its sanctions on
the North.
Following the New Year's Day message, North Korea has repeatedly called for talks
to formally end the Korean War with a peace treaty, arguing the armistice feeds
U.S. hostilities against it and impedes progress in the denuclearization talks.
North Korea had said in December that waters just south of the NLL in the Yellow
Sea are part of its "peacetime firing zone." On Tuesday, it declared "no-sail"
zones in the areas in a typical move ahead of military drills.
(END)

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