North Korea is calling on the South Korean government to prioritize implementing past North-South agreements over permitting private exchanges between the two sides.

The Moon Jae-in administration has recently given permission to several private civic groups to visit their North Korean counterparts for humanitarian and other projects.

However, Pyongyang rejected a visit request by one of the groups this week, and the North's state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper published an editorial Tuesday, saying private exchanges do not address the main reason ties between the two sides have collapsed.

The paper went on to say the real path toward peace and unification is implementing declarations signed on June 15th, 2000 and October fourth, 2007.

The declarations call for projects to boost economic cooperation and promote peace and reconciliation between the two sides. 

The paper claimed that improvement of inter-Korean relations will not come automatically just because of the government change in the South, and that what matter is whether or not the new government has the will to implement the landmark inter-Korean declarations.  

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