Blaming the United States for escalating tensions over the Korean Peninsula in recent months, North Korea's U.N. ambassador warned that a new war could take place "at any moment".
In a rare press conference Friday, the North Korean Ambassador Sin Son Ho accused the Washington government of continuing its "hostile policy" toward the Pyongyang government.
Sin Son Ho emphasized that the continued existence of the U.N. Command in South Korea and the joint military exercises of the U.S. with South Korea reflected Washington's "hostile policy" toward Pyongyang and the ambassador said such acts could lead to a new war "at any moment."
"The U.N. Command, fundamentally speaking, was a tool of war which was organized by the United States for the purpose of deploying its satellite forces and exercising its control over them during the last Korean War," said Sin Son Ho.
"In other words, every issue could be possible to be settled once and for all if the United States has a true and genuine willingness to cooperate with the DPRK without any hostility for establishing peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and the region," said Sin.
Labeling the U.N. Command as a source of tension that could spark a new war, the ambassador called the Command a "ghost" and demanded that it be dissolved in order to ease tensions over the Korean Peninsula.
According to the Voice of America, a spokesman of the United States responded saying that the U.N. command has been in Korea for years and will continue to be.
In the past weeks there have been attempts to ease the tensions between the two Koreas by holding talks but the scheduled meetings failed to materialize over delegation disputes.
Failing to hold talks with Seoul, North Korea offered to hold senior-level talks with Washington, which the Obama administration accepted but set the "scrapping" of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons as a precondition.
"Those talks have to be real. They have to be based on them living up to their obligations, to include on proliferation, on nuclear weapons, on smuggling and other things," said Denis McDough, the chief of staff of the Obama administration last Sunday.
"So we'll judge them by their actions, not by the nice words that we heard," said Denis McDough.
China, North Korea's main ally, has also in recent months warned the Pyongyang government to stay within the norms of international nuclear and missile treaties.
