By Kim Young-jin
North Korea said Tuesday its deadly shelling of a South Korean island could have been avoided if the United States and other countries had agreed last year to discuss a peace treaty, calling again for such talks.
“If they had accepted our suggestion, we would not have attacked Yeonpyeong,” the mouthpiece of the North’s state-run media, the Rodong Shinmun, said in an editorial.
On Jan. 11 last year, the North proposed talks with the United States to reach a formal peace treaty to end the 1950-53 Korean War, indicating it was a precondition for restarting the stalled multilateral denuclearization talks.
“We maintain the stance that a peace system must be established on the Korean Peninsula,” the editorial said. “We need to build trust with the United States to ensure peace on the peninsula, and to do that, we need to establish a peace treaty to end the state of war.”
Tension remains high after the Nov. 23 shelling, which killed four people, as well as due to the North’s sinking of a South Korean warship in March that killed 46.
Pyongyang, at the urging of China, has been calling for inter-Korean dialogue as a means to de-escalate tension and create an atmosphere for multiparty talks. Seoul has responded by offering government-level talks, but only if the North accounts for its provocations and proves its intent to denuclearize.
Washington, Seoul’s staunchest ally, has called on the North to mend ties with the South and account for its provocations before any resumption of multilateral negotiations.
Issues related to North Korea are expected to be high on the agenda when U.S. President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao meet for summit talks in Washington next week.
Pyongyang, late last year disclosed a sprawling uranium-enrichment plant that experts fear can be upgraded to produce weapons-grade material, raising the ante for the resumption of the six-party denuclearization-for-aid talks.