The media in the north of the country say that Kim is fighting against Korea without arms

Seoul, South Korea – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has reaffirmed his commitment to a denuclearized Korean peninsula in a growing conflict with the United States, state-controlled media reported on Thursday.

The statement of the Korean central news agency was not new – Kim has repeatedly stated similar intentions – but gives hope that diplomacy can return to the path after the recriminations that followed Kim's meeting. in June with US President Donald Trump in Singapore. The stalemate between North Korea and the United States, which neither side is willing to take action, has generated widespread skepticism over Trump's claims that Kim is determined to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

The South Korean envoys who met Kim on Wednesday finalized the dates of a summit between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, the driving force behind the current diplomacy. Moon is seen as eager to keep the nuclear talks alive so he can advance his ambitious engagement with the North, which would require US support to succeed. The date of the talks, to be held on the eve of the world leaders' rally in the United States at the end of September, was to be announced later on Thursday.

Kim was paraphrased in the statement of his propaganda specialists saying that it was "his desire to completely eliminate the danger of armed conflict and horror from the Korean Peninsular War and to To make it the cradle of peace without nuclear weapons and without nuclear threat. "

KCNA said Kim and the South Korean envoys had reached a "satisfactory agreement" on his planned summit with Moon.

Moon, who spoke on the phone about his plans with President Donald Trump, said his representatives had a crucial task that could determine the prospects for lasting peace.

While pursuing summits and inter-Korean engagement, Seoul is trying to persuade Washington and Pyongyang to simultaneously pursue peace and denuclearization processes so that they can overcome a growing dispute over the chain of diplomacy.

Seoul also hopes that a trilateral summit between countries, or a meeting of four countries also gathering Beijing, announces the official end of the 1950-53 Korean War. The US General Assembly at the end of September would be an ideal date for Seoul, but many analysts consider this possibility to be weak, given the complications of the process and the current remoteness of the parties.

US officials have insisted that a peace declaration, which many see as a precursor to the North, ultimately calling for the withdrawal of all US troops from the Korean peninsula, can only come before North Korea takes over. more concrete measures to abandon its nuclear weapons. Such measures may include reporting on the components of its nuclear program, permitting external inspections and abandoning a number of its nuclear weapons at the beginning of the negotiations.

While a declaration of end of war would not imply a legally binding peace treaty, the experts say that it could create a political momentum that would facilitate the conduct of discussions towards a peace regime, a diplomatic recognition, economic benefits and security concessions.

North Korea has accused the United States of formulating "unilateral and gangster-like" claims for denuclearization and retaining the end-of-war declaration. The North Korean Foreign Ministry on Tuesday issued a long statement on its website claiming that a declaration of end of war would be a necessary step to build trust between the enemies of war and manifest the political will to establish a lasting and stable peace regime. the Korean peninsula. "

South Korean officials said an end-of-war statement would be among the issues discussed at meetings between South Korean envoys and North Korean officials.

"Our government believes that an end-of-war declaration is absolutely necessary as we embark on a process of stabilizing peace on the Korean peninsula with complete denuclearization," said Moon's councilor Chung Eui-yong. National Security and Head of South Korea. delegation to Pyongyang at a press conference on Tuesday.

"We will continue to make efforts so that a declaration of end of war can be reached by the end of the year.We still maintain a close communication with the United States.

After their June summit in Singapore, Trump and Kim issued a vague statement about a denuclearized peninsula without describing when and how it would occur. Nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang after the summit were difficult and quickly ended in deadlock.

While the United States maintains that efforts to improve relations between the two Koreas should go hand in hand with North Korea's denuclearization efforts, Moon recently said that inter-Korean engagement could take the lead.

"If necessary, we should move forward negotiations for the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula with the development of relations between the South and the North," said Chung.

Any progress may depend on the ability of Moon's emissaries to impose on North Korea a stronger verbal commitment to denuclearization to help revive nuclear talks between the United States and Pyongyang.

Trump has canceled a visit to North Korea last month by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, citing insufficient progress in denuclearization. The resumption of negotiations between the United States and North Korea sometime before the next inter-Korean summit, which will probably take place in mid-September, could allow Moon to work more on her arrival in Pyongyang.

The two inter-Korean summits in April and May dispelled the fears of the war and triggered global diplomatic pressure that culminated in Kim's meeting with Trump in June. But Moon faces more difficult challenges ahead of his third meeting with Kim with deadlock in nuclear talks between Pyongyang and Washington, raising fundamental questions about Kim's alleged willingness to abandon his nuclear weapons.

The Korean War ended with an armistice, leaving the peninsula technically still at war. Moon has made an end-of-war declaration an important premise of his peace program with North Korea.

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AP author, Foster Klug, contributed to this report.