N. Korea Ends State of ‘Semi-War’ Declared During Exercises in South

North Korea announced Wednesday that it is ending the state of “semi-war” it declared during joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises that ended last Thursday.

While the announcement, carried by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency, may help ease tensions on the volatile Korean Peninsula, there was no indication that the country is reconsidering its decision to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

That move sharpened Western suspicions that North Korea may be developing nuclear weapons. It also has delayed talks on reconciliation between North and South Korea, which were divided in 1945 and fought a war in the early 1950s.

North Korea signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1985 but did not allow required international inspections until last year.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which oversees compliance with the treaty, made six inspections.

But it was then barred from visiting two sites, setting up the standoff that led North Korea to announce its withdrawal from the treaty March 12.

North Korea denies that it is developing nuclear weapons and maintains that its nuclear program is for strictly peaceful purposes.

A Japanese newspaper reported Wednesday that North Korea has developed a medium-range missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Quoting unnamed military sources in Tokyo, Sankei Shimbun said North Korea secretly shipped the so-called Rodong-1 to Iran last year. Although a test-firing last June was a failure, Pyongyang went ahead and exported it to Iran, the sources were quoted as saying.

The ballistic missile can hit targets within a 625-mile range, far superior to the Scud-B and Scud-C missiles developed by the former Soviet Union, the daily said.