N. KOREA PREPS NUKE SITE DEMOLITION DESPITE DOUBTS
Move ahead of Kim-Trump summit comes after North threatens to pull out due to US pressure
INVITED foreign journalists gathered in North Korea yesterday to witness the slated destruction of the reclusive regime’s nuclear test site, a high profile gesture on the road to a summit with the United States that the latter’s president Donald Trump now says might not happen.
In a surprise announcement, Pyongyang said earlier this month that it planned to “completely” destroy the Punggye-ri facility in the country’s northeast, a move welcomed by Washington, DC. and Seoul.
Punggye-ri has been the site of all six of the North’s nuclear tests, the latest and by far the most powerful in September last year, which Pyongyang said was an H-bomb. The demolition was due to take place sometime between yesterday and Friday, depending on the weather.
The North has portrayed the destruction as a goodwill gesture ahead of planned June 12 summit between its leader, Kim Jong-un, and Trump in Singapore. But doubts have since been cast by both sides on whether that potentially historic meeting will take place.
Last week, Pyongyang threatened to pull out if Washington, DC. pressed for its unilateral nuclear disarmament.
Trump said the meeting could be delayed as he met South Korean leader Moon Jae-in in Washington, DC. on Tuesday.
“There are certain conditions we want to happen. I think we’ll get those conditions. And if we don’t, we won’t have the meeting,” he said, without elaborating on what those conditions might be.
Politically, Trump has invested heavily in the success of his meeting with Kim, and so most US officials, as well as outside observers, believe it will go ahead.
But as the date draws near, Trump’s divergence from his top aides, the differences between the two sides and these high stakes are coming into sharp relief. Washington has made it clear it wants to see the “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation” of the North.
Pyongyang has vowed it will never give up its nuclear deterrence until it feels safe from what is sees as US aggression.
“Everything is on thin ice,” Koo Kab-woo, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said.
“Trump wants a swift denuclearisation, something that will be done within his first term in office. In that case, he has to provide North Korea with a corresponding, swift security guarantee.”
Experts are divided over whether the demolition will render the site useless. Sceptics say the site has outlived its usefulness with six successful nuclear tests in the bag and can quickly be rebuilt if needed.
Previous similar gestures by the North have been rapidly reversed when the international mood soured. But others say the fact that North Korea agreed to destroy the site without preconditions is significant.