NEED FOR US TO DITCH HOSTILE POLICY TOWARDS N.KOREA - RESEARCHER

KUALA LUMPUR, June 1 (Bernama) -- Removing the United States (US) hostile
policy against North Korea and the improvement of Pyongyang-Washington relations
are necessary prerequisites towards ensuring peace on the Korean peninsula, an
international conference was told.

Ma Tong Hui, senior researcher at North Korea's Institute for Disarmament
and Peace (IDP), said Pyongyang would develop relations with the US if the
Americans discarded its hostile stance towards North Korea and respected its
sovereignty and the right of choice.

He said this in his paper focusing on the situation in the Korean peninsula
submitted at the 25th Asia Pacific Roundtable here.

He said the process of solving the Korean nuclear issue would be made easier
if such hostile relations were replaced by confidence in one another.

"The nuclear weapons that we have are not the means to attack or threat
other countries," he said, adding that they were to deter external aggression.


South and North Korea went to war in 1950, which ended three years later.
But no peace treaty has been signed, resulting in the two countries remaining
technically at war.

Ma said the US and South Korea should come to the negotiation table without
imposing any precondition on North Korea.

He pointed out that the division of the two Koreas was the legacy of the
Cold War.

Ma also said that despite various hardships, the people of North Korea still
harboured hopes of seeing development in their country.

The three-day Asia Pacific Roundtable is organised by Asean Institutes of
Strategic and International Studies (Asean-ISIS).