A North Korean official thanked a regional, intergovernmental organization on Monday for its support of dialogue and negotiations to achieve peace on the peninsula, a statement on the DPRK’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs website showed.

The message, addressed to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), comes a month after Pyongyang ordered the demolition of the inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong, which was opened in 2018 to improve relations with Seoul.

“We appreciate that ASEAN … maintains its principled stand of supporting realization of peace and security of the Korean peninsula through dialogue and negotiations,” Pak Jong Hak, chairman of