The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Monday renewed its demands of negotiating a peace treaty and lifting sanctions before it would return to the six-party nuclear disarmament talks, the official Korean Central News Agency reported.
The failure for the discussion on concluding a peace treaty to start is "consequently pushing back the process of denuclearization," the agency quoted an unnamed spokesman of the Foreign Ministry as saying in a statement.
"There will be a starting point of confidence building only if the parties concerned sit at a negotiating table for concluding a peace treat," the spokesman said.
The statement also demanded lifting of the sanctions imposed on the DPRK after it conducted a satellite launch and a nuclear test last spring.
The DPRK said last Monday it would discuss reaching a peace treaty with relevant state parties in the framework of the six-party talks to replace the Armistice Agreement which ended the 1950-53 Korean War, a call the United States has rejected.