SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea said Monday it wants a peace treaty with the United States as a precondition for giving up its nuclear weapons, and called for sanctions to be scrapped before it returns to disarmament talks.

The foreign ministry statement was the first time the North has publicly stated its position on the disarmament negotiations since US envoy Stephen Bosworth visited Pyongyang last month.

Bosworth was trying to persuade the communist state to return to the six-nation talks it abandoned last April, a month before staging a second nuclear test. No clear agreement was reached.

The statement said it was "good to move up the order of action" in light of the failure of the six-party talks.

"The conclusion of the peace treaty will help terminate the hostile relations between the DPRK (North Korea) and the US and positively promote the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula at a rapid tempo," it said.

Six-party agreements in 2005 and 2007 envisage talks on a treaty to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War, but only in return for full denuclearisation.

The North said talks on a peace pact could be held either at a separate forum or in the framework of the six-party talks, which group the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan.

"The removal of the barrier of such discrimination and distrust as sanctions may soon lead to the opening of the six-party talks," its statement said.

A US-led United Nations coalition fought for the South while China backed the North. The conflict, in which millions of troops or civilians died, ended only in an armistice.

The North's statement mentioned only a peace pact with the United States.

Kim Yong-Hyun, a professor at Seoul's Dongguk University, described the proposal as unrealistic. "I believe the US will not accept it as North Korea has long tried to exclude South Korea in such talks," he told AFP.

"The proposal is aimed at taking the upper hand in future negotiations and securing more concessions when talks resume with the US or South Korea."

However, Kim said Pyongyang might return to the six-party talks, even though its statement carried preconditions.

The North reiterated that it would not have needed to develop nuclear bombs without what it sees as US hostility.

It said the "repeated frustrations and failures" in the talks that began in 2003 proved that the issue can never be settled without confidence among the parties concerned.

"Still today the talks remain blocked by the barrier of distrust called sanctions against the DPRK," it added.

"If confidence is to be built between the DPRK and the US, it is essential to conclude a peace treaty for terminating the state of war, a root cause of the hostile relations, to begin with."

The United Nations tightened weapons-related sanctions after the North's May nuclear test and missile launches, and the US administration has been seeking tight enforcement of them.

In a New Year editorial message, the North called for an end to hostile relations with the United States and vowed to work towards a nuclear-free peninsula.

But a US State Department official said Pyongyang should demonstrate its good faith by returning to the six-party talks.

On Monday Robert King, the Obama administration's new envoy on human rights in North Korea, said relations can only improve once Pyongyang improves its "appalling" rights record.

Baek Seung-Joo, of Seoul's Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said the statement indicated the North was heading back towards the six-party talks.

"There exists a discrepancy between North Korea and the others, notably South Korea, in sequencing the tasks of denuclearisation and striking a peace treaty on the Korean peninsula," he said.