Dismantling NKorea N-site well under way: US monitor

2 Koreas to hold talks

SEOUL, May 15, (Agencies): Satellite photos indicate North Korea has begun dismantling its nuclear test site ahead of a historic summit between leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, a US monitor said Tuesday.

In a move welcomed by Washington and Seoul, North Korea said at the weekend it will “completely” destroy the Punggye-ri test site, in a ceremony scheduled between May 23-25 in front of invited foreign media.

But no observers from international atomic monitoring agencies have been invited, raising concerns over the openness of the process.

Punggye-ri, in the northeast of the country, 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.

North Korea pledged to close the testing ground after Kim last month declared the country’s nuclear force complete and said it had no further need for the complex.

The respected 38 North website said Tuesday that satellite images dated May 7 showed “the first definitive evidence that dismantlement of the test site was already well under way”.

Several key operational buildings as well as smaller sheds had been razed and rails connecting the tunnels to their waste piles were removed, the monitoring group said.

Excavation of a new tunnel has also been halted since late March, it added.

Images showed preparatory work for the destruction ceremony had also begun, including a newly positioned foundation among the waste piles believed to have been built for the invited journalists.

“It is conceivably for a future camera position to record the closure of the West Portal,” the group said.

Kim

Destruction

However no tunnel entrances appear to have been permanently closed and some main buildings are still intact, it added, saying the destruction of those facilities was likely to be carried out in front of the foreign media.

Dialogue brokered by South Korea has seen US-North Korea relations go from trading personal insults and threats of war last year to a summit between Kim and Trump which will be held in Singapore on June 12.

Kim’s latest diplomatic overture has seen him hold a summit with the South’s President Moon Jae-in and travel twice in less than two months to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

The two Koreas are due to meet for a high-level meeting on Wednesday to discuss follow-up measures from their summit last month, Seoul’s unification ministry said.

Washington is seeking the “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation” of the North and stresses that verification will be key.

But sceptics warn that Pyongyang has yet to make any public commitment to give up its arsenal, which includes missiles capable of reaching the United States.

Satellite photos from last month showed signs of construction at the North’s Yongbyon nuclear facility.

The purpose of the new buildings at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Centre was unknown, 38 North has said, with “no observable signs that initial reactor operations are imminent”.

North Korea blew up a cooling tower at the nuclear facility in 2007 following a deal with the US, but soon restarted the reactor.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday the United States would agree to lift sanctions on North Korea if it agreed to completely dismantle its nuclear weapons programme, a move that would create economic prosperity that “will rival” that of South Korea.

Last month, Pompeo became the first known US official to meet North Korean leader Kim, where he helped lay the groundwork for the meeting with Trump.

He returned again to North Korea this month for a second meeting, after which Kim agreed to the release of three American prisoners.

A South Korean presidential adviser warned that an incremental North Korean approach to denuclearisation at the June 12 summit would not be acceptable to Trump or the South Korean public.

Give

“When Kim Jong Un sees President Trump in Singapore, he should give something big,” the security adviser, Moon Chung-in, said at a conference in Tokyo.

Meanwhile, disarmament experts have raised questions about the safety and verification of North Korea’s shutdown of its nuclear test site.

North Korea has invited international media to witness the destruction of the site, but not technical inspectors, leaving disarmament experts and nuclear scientists wondering how effective the plan is – and whether it will be safe.

On Tuesday, North Korea invited one news agency and one television broadcaster from South Korea to observe the shutdown, the South’s Ministry of Unification said.

South Koreans cannot visit North Korea without an invitation from the North and approval from their government.

Wednesday’s meeting will take place at the Peace House in Panmunjom, on the heavily fortified border between the two Koreas, where the two sides signed their joint-declaration last month, the unification ministry said in a statement.

“Through these high-level talks we will negotiate and implement measures to carry out the Panmunjom Declaration and build sustainable development for inter-Korean relations and permanent peace on the Korean peninsula,” the ministry said.

South Korea’s Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon will lead a team of five at the talks.

North Korea’s 29-member delegation will be led by Ri Son-gwon, chairman of its “Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the country”. Also in the delegation will be Kim Yun-hyok, vice minister of railways, and Won Kil-U, vice minister of physical culture and sports.