[JURIST] In a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) a spokesman for North Korea's Foreign Ministry stated Friday that the Korean War Armistice Agreement [text] ending the war in 1953 must be replaced by a peace treaty to resolve Korea's nuclear crisis [BBC Q&A]. The comments precede a meeting of regional leaders in Beijing Tuesday, intended to result in an exchange of Pyongyang's nuclear powers program for security guarantees and economic assistance. According to a foreign ministry spokesman, the peace treaty, "would lead to putting an end to the US hostile policy toward [North Korea], which spawned the nuclear issue and the former's nuclear threat, and automatically result in the denuclearisation of the peninsula." He added that a peace treaty would "give a strong impetus to the process of the soon-to-be-resumed six party talks to settle the nuclear issue." North Korea pulled out of the six party talks [DoS backgrounder] when it acknowledged that it had nuclear weapons [JURIST report] in February. Reuters has more.