North Korea destroys test site as journalists observe

PUNGGYE-RI, North Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made good on his promise to demolish his country’s nuclear test site, which was formally closed in a series of explosions Thursday as a group of foreign journalists looked on.

The explosions at the test site deep in the mountains of the North’s sparsely populated northeast were supposed to build confidence ahead of a planned summit next month between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump. But Trump canceled the meeting Thursday, citing “tremendous anger and open hostility” in a North Korean statement.

The blasts were centered on three tunnels at the underground site and a number of buildings in the area. North Korea held a closing ceremony with officials from its nuclear arms program in attendance.

The group of journalists that witnessed the demolition, which touched off landslides near the tunnel entrances and sent up clouds of smoke and dust, included an Associated Press Television crew.

Kim announced his plan to close the site, where North Korea has conducted all six of its underground nuclear tests, ahead of a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in April and the planned summit with Trump next month.

But even as North Korea made good on its gesture of detente, it lobbed a verbal salvo at Washington, calling Vice President Mike Pence a “political dummy” and saying it is just as ready to meet in a nuclear confrontation as at the negotiating table.

Trump responded by canceling the summit.