DPRK renews call for end to mutual provocation with ROK at UN

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Friday held a news conference at the United Nations, calling for an end to provocation between DPRK and the Republic of Korea (ROK) while asking Seoul to scrap a planned military drill with the United States. Sin Son Ho, the DPRK's ambassador to the United Nations, repeated the three proposals originally presented in an "open letter" from Pyongyang to Seoul last month, calling for an end to recriminations and military provocation between the two to stop and prevent nuclear confrontation. "We propose taking practical measures to be beneficial to each other to prevent a nuclear holocaust from being inflicted on the Korean peninsula," he said. If the joint ROK-U.S. military exercises were not canceled because they "are so precious and valuable, they had better hold the exercises in a secluded area or in the United States far away from the territorial land, sea and air of the Korean peninsula," he added. DPRK's National Defense Commission made the three-point " proposal" on Jan. 16, calling for the two countries to make concerted efforts to push for a thaw in relations starting from Jan. 31, the Lunar New Year's Day, and for ROK to stop its annual military drills with the United States. The ROK Defense Ministry responded last week that the joint military drills between Seoul and Washington would be conducted as scheduled despite the DPRK peace proposal. "Key Resolve and Foal Eagle will be carried out as scheduled," ROK Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said. "If North Korea makes military provocations citing our normal military exercises, our military will sternly and ruthlessly retaliate against such provocations."