North Korea’s Kim Yo-jong says the country is willing to stop the conflict if certain criteria are satisfied

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sister has stated that they are open to resuming negotiations with the South if it ends its “hostile policies.”

Kim Yo-jong was reacting to a renewed push from the South to terminate the Korean War officially.

The conflict that split the peninsula in two ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty in 1953. Since then, the two countries have been formally at war and have had a strained relationship.

Moon Jae-in, the president of South Korea, called on the two Koreas and their allies – the United States, which backs the South, and China, which is the North’s largest trading partner – to proclaim a formal end to the hostilities and bring peace to the peninsula this week. A top North Korean ministry first denounced the concept as “premature.”

Ms. Kim, on the other hand, described the proposal as “admirable” in an unexpected statement released through official media on Friday.She did add, though, that the North would only examine the suggestion if the South ceased engaging in “hostile policies” toward them.

“What needs to go are the double-dealing attitudes, irrational prejudice, poor habits, and antagonistic posture of justifying their own actions while criticising our just exercise of the right to self-defense,” she said in a statement.

“Only once such a requirement has been met will it be possible to sit face to-face and declare the significant end of the

Since the collapse of denuclearisation discussions between Mr. Kim and US President Donald Trump in 2019, relations between the two countries have not improved significantly.

Mr. Moon, who has made diplomacy with the North a priority throughout his presidency, has previously claimed that a declaration of war’s end would persuade the North to denuclearize. In reply, North Korea has demanded that punishing economic restrictions be withdrawn first.

However, the United States has frequently stated that any restrictions against North Korea must first be withdrawn before any penalties are lifted.