DPRK demands U.S. to take practical actions to promote peace

PYONGYANG, July 25 (Xinhua) -- The United States should unconditionally replace the Korean Armistice Agreement (AA) with a peace agreement, the Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said Wednesday.

"The U.S. should not just claim that it does not have any hostile intentions to the DPRK in words but prove it in such practical actions as making a bold decision to replace AA with a peace agreement without any excuse or precondition," a ministry spokesman said in a statement.

Noting that "the unstable truce" between the DPRK and the United States has persisted on the Korean Peninsula for 59 years, the statement, carried by the official KCNA news agency, said this is "a very abnormal situation unprecedented in the world history of wars."

Washington "deliberately opted to keep the truce long," and has persistently avoided the conclusion of a peace agreement and kept the state of belligerency on the Korean Peninsula, the statement added, saying "this is the most typical expression of its hostile policy toward the DPRK."

Meanwhile, the United States "has systematically scrapped major provisions of AA, steadily increased military and nuclear threats to the DPRK and in the long run compelled it to have access to nuclear weapons," the spokesman said.