SEOUL – North Korea said it conducted a “very important test” at a rocket launch site on Saturday, the same day a senior diplomatsaid denuclearization isoff the negotiating table.
The test paves the way for North Korea to launch a satellite or intercontinental ballistic missile around the end of this year, experts said, fulfilling a threat to give the United States an unwelcome“Christmas gift.”
A spokesman for North Korea’s Academy of the National Defense Science said the test was carried out at Sohae Satellite Launching Ground in Tongchang-ri, a site near the Chinese borderthat has been used to launch satellites into space in the past. The United Nations bans North Korea from launching satellites, viewing it as a cover for testing ballistic missile technology.
President Trump said he had convinced North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to close down the site when the pair met in Singapore in June 2020. When evidence emerged that North Korea was rebuilding the site, Trump said in March he would be “very, very disappointed” with Kim if that proved to be the case, but said he didn’t believe it would be.
Saturday’s test underlines just how far relations have deteriorated since a failed summit in Hanoi at the end of February, and could presage another round of weapons tests and hostile exchanges next year.
In a statement carried by the state-run Korea Central News Agency on Sunday, the spokesman said the test result “will have an important impact on changing the strategic position of the DPRK,” referring to his country by the initials of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Kim Song, Pyongyang’s envoy to the United Nations, dismissed the Trump administration’s calls for dialogue Saturday as a “timesaving trick” solely for “its domestic political agenda.”
“We do not need to have lengthy talks with the US now and denuclearization is already gone out of the negotiating table, ”he said.
Later on Saturday, Trump stressed his good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying Kim does not want to “interfere” with his reelection bid for 2020.
“He knows I have an election coming up. I don’t think he wants to interfere with that, but we’ll have to see. … I think he’d like to see something happen. The relationship is very good, but you know, there is certain hostility, ”Trump told reporters at the White House on Saturday.
During his term, Trump has met with the North Korean leader three times in an effort to persuade him to give up nuclear weapons. Trump has repeatedly touted his “good relationship” with Kim as a win from his engagement efforts.
However, North Korea has been ramping up provocations ahead of the year-end deadline it has set for Washington to make a significant concession in nuclear negotiations. Pyongyang has called on the United States to drop its push for unilateral denuclearization of North Korea and relieve punishing sanctions on the country.
Sunday’s announcement of a new test at the Sohae site is “ a first solid step in ending a moratorium on testing ”in a lead-up to the end-of-year deadline, said Nathan Hunt, an independent defense analyst who focuses on North Korea’s weapons systems.
Kim has announced a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear warhead and long-range missile tests ahead of seeking dialogue with the United States, which Trump has held up as his diplomatic achievement.
“North Korea is not going to any longer let actions be dictated so as to give good PR to the West,” Hunt said.
Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, had predicted a test was imminent at Sohae earlier this week through analysis of satellite imagery.
“The North Korean statement strongly implies that North Korea has tested a new or substantially improved rocket engine,” he said. “This suggests the‘ Christmas gift ’that North Korea has promised will be a new missile. Possibilities range from an improved Hwasong – 90 to a solid-propellant ICBM. ”
But Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, said a satellite test would be the perfect next step, since it would not technically breach the moratorium, even if it would be widely seen as an ICBM test in disguise.
“The North Koreans will have no choice, but do something dramatic early next year – after all, they promised that they will not remain idle if the Americans do not Give them what they expect, ”he wrote in an email.
But a satellite test“ will not likely produce enough political and media noise they are now badly need, so it will be followed by more ‘military demonstrations’ (often mislabeled ‘provocations’) by Pyongyang, ”he added.
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