North Korea has today urged the United Nations to dissolve the UN Command in the country and pressed for the withdrawal of US troops based in South Korea.
The call was made in a rare letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that also warned that war in the Asian peninsula is inevitable if the US arms build-up in South Korea continues.
"It is our view that a war in Korea is almost unavoidable as long as the US hostile policy toward the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] goes on," said the 1,100-word letter written by Colonel-General Ri Chan-bok.
Col Ri is the long-serving North Korean representative at the Panmunjom truce village, which lies in the middle of the Demilitarised Zone that has separated capitalist South Korea from the communist North since the 1950-53 Korean War.
North Korea remains technically at war with the US-led UN forces in the South because the conflict ended in an armed truce that has not been replaced by a peace treaty.
It is not immediately clear whether Mr Annan has received the letter yet, which was dated July 22nd and published today, the 51st anniversary of the Korean War armistice.
The US military in Seoul had no immediate comment.
The United States announced last month that it planned to withdraw a third of its 37,500 troops from South Korea as part of a long-term global force realignment. It also plans to move forward-deployed troops away from the border with the North.
But to assuage South Korean concerns, the Pentagon said last year it would spend $11 billion on advanced weaponry.