North Korea Rejects Barack Obama’s Offer for Nuclear Negotiations

North Korea has declined President Barack Obama’s offer for nuclear negotiations, Reuters reported.

Barack Obama made the statement during a joint news conference with South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Friday, October 16.

The next day, the North Korean Foreign Ministry declined the opportunity to open negotiations, but it again demanded a peace treaty in place of the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.

The ministry said in a statement: “No issue in which the countries concerned, including the U.S., are interested can be settled unless a peace treaty is concluded before anything else.

“If the U.S. insists on its hostile policy, it will only see the DPRK’s limitless bolstering of nuclear deterrence and the growth of its revolutionary armed forces.”

Barack Obama and Park Geun-hye Friday reaffirmed the strength of their alliance.

Park Geun-hye called the US-South Korea relationship a “lynchpin of peace and stability” for Asia and the Korean Peninsula where tensions have been high in recent months.