Before summit, N Korea razes missile test facility
DIPLOMATIC FLURRY Japan’s PM in US to coordinate approach to Pyongyang SEOUL:
Satellite imagery indicates that North Korea is razing some facilities used for testing one of its most dangerous missiles after its leader, Kim Jong Un, announced a moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests.
A “key missile test stand” that was used for testing missile ejections from canisters was demolished at a test site near Kusong in North Korea’s northwest, Joseph S Bermudez Jr, an expert on the country’s weapons systems, said in a report published on Wednesday on the website 38 North.
The Kusong test site was being monitored by missile experts because North Korea launched its first solid-fuel midrange ballistic missile Pukguksong-2 from there in February last year.
Besides its intercontinental ballistic missiles, solid-fuel missiles have been among the most worrisome additions to North Korea’s growing arsenal of ballistic missiles. They can be launched faster and are easier to transport and hide, making them more suitable for surprise attacks.
SOUTH SEEKING EARLY PACT TO END WAR
Seoul is in three-way talks with Pyongyang and Washington for an early agreement on formally ending the decades-old Korean War, it said on Thursday ahead of the Trump-Kim summit.
The 1950-53 conflict ceased with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two sides technically at war, and President Trump said last week that it would be one of the issues on the table at the historic summit. “We talked about ending the war,” Trump said following a meeting with a senior North Korean envoy. “Historically it’s very important, but we’ll see.”
South Korea’s foreign ministry said Thursday it was holding three-way discussions on the issue, without providing further details.
TRUMP HOSTS JAPAN PM AHEAD OF KIM SUMMIT
President Trump is playing host to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who wants his voice heard ahead of the unprecedented summit.
Trump and Abe will hold a joint press conference at the White House before heading to Canada for what promises to be a tense Group of Seven summit clouded by the US leader’s aggressive trade policies.
Since the first inkling that a Trump-Kim summit could be on the cards, Japan has repeatedly insisted that Washington be mindful not to let its guard down with the nuclear-armed regime in Pyongyang.
And by coming to Washington to see Trump for the second time in less than two months, Abe wants to be sure to get his point across to the US president, amid the intense diplomatic flurry over the future of the Korean peninsula.