PYONGYANG, January 16. /ITAR-TASS/. Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has issued an appeal to the government of the Republic of Korea “to create an atmosphere conducive to an improvement of relations between North and South”, the Korean Central News Agency /KCNA/ said quoting a statement of the National Defense Commission.

Along with it, Pyongyang has offered Seoul to start taking practical measures towards this objective as of January 30, as well as to renounce hostile actions - inclusive of the military ones - against each other on the ground, out in area of Five Islands in the Yellow Sea and in the airspace.

The commission believes the South Korean authorities should take a political decision on lifting the Key Resolve and the Foal Eagle joint military exercises with the U.S., currently scheduled for the end of February.

If cooperation and coordination with the U.S. presents a greater value for the South Korean side, then South Korea and the U.S. should conduct these exercises in remote or isolate areas or right down in the U.S. proper and as far away from the North Korean territorial waters or airspace as possible, the commission said in its statement.

Implementation of practical steps towards improvement of relations between North and South will help “avert a nuclear disaster on the Korean Peninsula” and continue the solution of problems that both sides find to be pressing ones.

The scope of the latter problems includes reunions of the families or relatives separated by the Korean War of 1950-53.

AS for the North Korean nuclear forces, they play the role a deterrence instrument in the situation of the U.S. hostile policies and will never be used for blackmailing fellow-countrymen in the South of the Korean Peninsula, the statement said.