The present situation of the Korean peninsula is so grave that a war may break out at any moment, a senior diplomat of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) warned in Geneva on Thursday.

South Korean naval ship, the Cheonan, sinks near South Korea's Baeknyeong Island, close to DPRK, in the western waters on Saturday, March 27, 2010. [Xinhua]

Ri Jang-Gon, the DPRK's deputy permanent representative to the UN Office in Geneva, said the current grave situation was caused by South Korean in collaboration with its ally, the United States, over the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan in March.

Ri reiterated his country's position that Pyongyang had nothing to do with the sinking of the warship, and South Korea's assertion that the vessel had been sunken by a torpedo attack from a DPRK submarine was not true.

"The results of investigation made by the South Korean regime is a sheer fabrication based on assumptions, guesses and supposition," he told a session of the UN-sponsored Conference on Disarmament.

Ri said the entire people of DPRK were "making their upmost efforts to attain the goal of a powerful and prosperous country by the year 2012."

He added that the Korean peninsula was the only region that had been in a state of war for over half a century, and only by concluding a "peace treaty" can realize the successful denuclearization of the peninsula.