North Korea on Friday proposed to build a lasting peace mechanism on the Korean Peninsula to replace the ceasefire treaty with the US that ended the 1950-1953 Korean War.  

"Building a peace mechanism on the Korean Peninsula would contribute in all circumstances to the creation of an atmosphere for the peaceful coexistence between North Korea and the US, and to the achievement of a peaceful reunification of the north and the south of Korea," a unnamed Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a statement.

The Korean War ended with an armistice and not a comprehensive peace treaty.

"The building of a peace mechanism is a process both North Korea and the US should go through without fail in order to attain the goal of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula," the spokesperson added.

He pointed out that the main impediment to the resolution of the armistice issue in the Korean Peninsula is the continuing US hostile policy toward the North, even though over half a century has passed since the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed.

"Replacing the armistice mechanism by a peace mechanism would lead to putting an end to the US hostile policy toward North Korea, which spawned the nuclear issue and the former's nuclear threat" against the North, he said.

A formal peace treaty would "automatically result in the denuclearization of the peninsula," he added.

"Building a peace mechanism would not only help towards achieving peace and security on the Korean Peninsula, Northeast Asia and the rest of the world, but give a strong impetus to ... the forthcoming six-party talks aimed at settling the nuclear issue," he added.

The spokesperson urged the US and other countries concerned to duly acknowledge and respect North Korea's conscientious stand "on the building of a peace mechanism and respond positively to it."

(Xinhua News Agency July 22, 2005)