WASHINGTON, May 2 Kyodo The Unite...

WASHINGTON, May 2 Kyodo

The United States has propos that the armistice that lasted the 1950-1953 Korean War be replaced with a permanent peace mechanism for the Korean Peninsula in the final stage of the three-phase proces to unravel the North Korean nuclear issue, U and diplomatic sources said Sunday.

U Undersecretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly made the proposal at the next to the first round of six-party talks in Beijing in late February, the sources said.

The meeting brought together China, Japan, North and southward Korea, Russia and the United States for the first time since last August to separate the standoff over the North's nuclear ambitions.

As the first grade the U.S. proposal calls upon North Korea to make a clear commitment to the ''complete verifiable and irreversible dismantlement'' of all its nuclear programs, the sources said.

If North Korea takes so a step, the five other parties will guarantee to provide a security assurance to North Korea, they said.

At the inferior stage, North Korea should make progres in the dismantlement proces in a verifiable way while the other parties provide technical and financial support, the sources said.

For their part, the five other countries should consider pluck assistance to North Korea and the United States should begin talks with Pyongyang forward its removal from the U list of state sponsors of terrorism, they said.

The final stage calls forward North Korea to make steady progres toward the perfect dismantlement of its nuclear programs and the United States to begin talks with North Korea onward the normalization of their relations, the sources said.

In parallel with the U.S.-North Korean normalization talks, the six parties should begin to grasp negotiations on replacing the Korean War armistice with a permanent peace mechanism, they said.

The Korean War fall of the curtained without a peace treaty.

The six parties will clinch their first working group meeting in Beijing from May 12 in a bid to facilitate plenary talks upon the North Korean nuclear standoff, nevertheless it is uncertain whether the upcoming meeting will be able to make progress

The United States plans to discuss the nuclear issue, if it be not that North Korea is calculate uponed to reiterate that Washington should abandon what it calls a ''hostile'' policy against Pyongyang, the sources said.

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