Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan says the parties to the six-way talks are working to resume the dialogue before Lunar New Year's holidays in mid-February.

Yu was speaking at an interpellation session at the National Assembly Friday. He said such efforts were under way for the six-way talks to not lose momentum by remaining in a long-term stalemate.

This came in response to a question on the timing of the resumption, to which he also replied that he could not give an exact date.

In addition, he said the visit by the international department head of China’s Communist Party, Wang Jiarui, was in the same vein.

But Yu said the peace treaty issue was agreed upon previously in a joint statement on a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. The statement says the peace treaty will be discussed in a separate forum if progress is made in the denuclearization of North Korea.

Yu said it is inappropriate for North Korea to propose such a treaty to the U.S.