N Korea test ‘important’

Seoul – North Korea yesterday said it had carried out a “very important test” at its space launch centre, 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 would 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 December 7, 2019,” a spokesperson for North Korea’s Academy of the National Defence Science said.

The result of the latest test will have an “important effect” on changing the “strategic position” of North Korea, the spokesperson said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

The statement did not provide further details on the test.

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 longrange ballistic missile tests.

Satellite imagery taken on December 5, 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.

Rocket engines are easily repurposed for use in missiles and the international community has called Pyongyang’s space programme 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.

It comes as Pyongyang is ramping up pressure ahead of its December 31 deadline for the US to propose a new offer to kickstart stalled nuclear talks.

Hours before North Korea announced its latest test, Trump had emphasised his “very good relationship” with North Korean leader Kim.

“Well, we’ll see about North Korea. I’d be surprised if North Korea acted hostiley,” he said on Saturday. “Kim knows I have an election coming up. I don’t think he wants to interfere with that. But we’ll have to see.”

Satellite imagery taken on December 5 showed a large container box at the site.