North Korea called on the United States Tuesday to terminate its "hostile policy" toward the communist country, saying it is the root cause of the failed talks on ending Pyongyang's controversial nuclear weapons program.



Tuesday marks the 20th anniversary of the 1994 signing of a landmark bilateral deal, known as the Agreed Framework, which called for Pyongyang to freeze and ultimately drop its nuclear program in exchange for two proliferation-resistant light water reactors for power generation, and the normalization of ties with Washington.



But the landmark deal fell apart in 2002, when it was revealed that Pyongyang had pursued a secret uranium enrichment program.



"It has become clear who is responsible for the collapse of the North Korea-U.S. agreement and why the (North Korea) nuclear issue was not resolved," the Rodong Sinmun, an organ of the country's governing party, said in an editorial. "All the blame should be put on Washington's hostile policy toward North Korea."



The U.S. did not sincerely follow through with the agreement and eventually dumped it, the newspaper claimed, adding "it is because malicious (U.S.) calculation lay in the agreement that our system may collapse by itself soon."



The 20-year-old agreement only shows that U.S. pressure and threats do not work on North Korea and only talks can solve the issue, the editorial said, calling President Barack Obama's so-called strategic patience policy a failure.



"The U.S. should repent for its wrongdoings and start to take a proper attitude before taking issue with our nuclear deterrence capacity," it said.



In 2003, the two Koreas, the U.S., Japan, and China launched the so-called six-party talks to persuade Pyongyang to scrap its nuclear weapons program, but the negotiations have been stalled since the last meeting in 2008.



North Korea carried out underground nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013. (Yonhap)