North Korea wants to sign a formal peace treaty with the United States to replace the armistice that ended the Korean War.

The North's foreign ministry said Friday that replacing the fragile ceasefire regime with a lasting peace mechanism could eliminate nuclear threats and the U.S. hostile policy toward the North and thus lead to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.

It also stressed the urgent need for a formal peace treaty to uproot lingering Cold War era legacies and to assure secure peace in Northeast Asia, adding that it would also provide momentum to the upcoming six-party process.

Saturday will mark the 52nd anniversary of the signing of the inter-Korean truce in 1953 that ended the Korean War. The two Koreas have remained technically in a state of war in the absence of a formal peace treaty.