One day before President Moon Jae-in's special delegation heads to Pyongyang, North Korea reiterated demands for a formal end to the Korean War.

Kim Yong-guk, head of North Korea’s Foreign Ministry’s Disarmament and Peace Institute, articulated the state’s position on the ministry’s web site Tuesday. 

Kim said that declaring an end to the war is, above all, the first process in building trust between Washington and Pyongyang. He described the declaration as a move to realize the political intent for establishing permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula.

He said that adopting a peace treaty is a time-consuming effort given that hostility and contradiction run deep and complex issues remain to be resolved between the two countries. 

Kim added that the war-ending declaration, however, can be easily adopted as long as the related parties have the political will, and it would be reasonable for them to do so to put an end to the state of war.