North Korea conducts ‘very important test’
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea said Sunday it had carried out a “very important test” at its space launch center, as Pyongyang ramps up pressure on Washington over stalled nuclear talks.
The announcement of Saturday’s test at the Sohae satellite launch site came just hours after US President Donald Trump said he’d be “surprised” by any hostile action from the North.
“A very important test took place at the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground on the afternoon of
7 December 2019,” a spokesman for North Korea’s Academy of the National Defense Science said.
The result of the latest test will have an “important effect” on changing the “strategic position” of North Korea, the spokesman said in a statement carried by the KCNA news agency.
The statement did not provide further details on the test.
Satellite imagery taken on 5 December showed a large container box at the site that was “a decent indicator of an impending engine test,” Jeffrey Lewis of the US-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies had said ahead of Pyongyang’s statement.
Sohae, on North Korea’s northwest coast, is ostensibly a facility designed for putting satellites into orbit.
But Pyongyang has carried out several rocket launches there that were condemned by the US and others as disguised long-range ballistic missile tests.
Rocket engines are easily repurposed for use in missiles and the international community has called Pyongyang’s space program a fig leaf for weapons tests.
North Korea dismantled the test stand at Sohae amid a rapid rapprochement in 2018 but reassembled it this year, Lewis said, adding, “Still, we had not seen any activity at the test stand” until now.
“It is clear that this is one more sign that North Korea is conducting more missile-related activities as Kim Jong Un’s end-of-year deadline for sanctions relief approaches,” he said, referring to the North Korean leader.
The latest test comes as Pyongyang is ramping up pressure ahead of its December deadline for the US to propose a new offer to kickstart stalled nuclear talks.
Hours before North Korea announced its latest test, Trump had emphasized his
“very good relationship” with Kim.
“Well, we’ll see about North
Korea. I’d be surprised if North
Korea acted hostiley,” he said on Saturday afternoon in Washington DC.
A very important test took place at the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground on the afternoon of 7 December 2019.