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North Korea

N. Korea preps nuclear site demolition 

SEOUL: N. Korea preps nuclear site demolition, Invited foreign journalists gathered in North Korea today to witness the slated destruction of the reclusive regime’s nuclear test site, a high profile gesture on the road to a summit with the US that Donald Trump now says might not happen.

In a surprise announcement Pyongyang said earlier this month that it planned to “completely” destroy the Punggye-ri facility in the country’s northeast, a move welcomed by Washington and Seoul. Punggye-ri 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.

The demolition is due to take place sometime between Wednesday and Friday, depending on the weather. The North has portrayed the destruction on the test site as a goodwill gesture ahead of planned June 12 summit between Kim and Trump in Singapore. But doubts have since been cast by both sides on whether that potentially historic meeting will take place.

Last week Pyongyang threatened to pull out if Washington pressed for its unilateral nuclear disarmament. Trump also said the meeting could be delayed as he met with South Korean leader Moon Jae-in in Washington on Tuesday.

“There are certain conditions we want to happen. I think we’ll get those conditions. And if we don’t, we won’t have the meeting,” he told reporters, without elaborating on what those conditions might be.

Relevant Piece Published Earlier: SEOUL: North Korea promised to close its atomic test site next month and invite US weapons experts to the country, Seoul stated today, as Donald Trump expressed optimism about securing a nuclear deal in his summit with the secretive regime. The reported pledge from the North’s leader Kim Jong Un follows weeks of whirlwind diplomacy that saw Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agree to pursue the complete denuclearization of the peninsula during a historic summit on Friday“Kim said, during the summit with President Moon, that he would carry out the closing of the nuclear test site in May,” Seoul’s presidential spokesman Yoon Young-chan said. Kim said he “would soon invite experts of South Korea and the US as well as journalists to disclose the process to the international community with transparency”, Yoon added. Tensions spiked last year over the North’s testing of atomic weapons and long-range missiles, including some capable of reaching the US mainland. “Kim said ‘the US feels repelled by us, but once we talk, they will realize that I am not a person who will fire a nuclear weapon to the South or the US or target the US,” according to Yoon.

 

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M M Alam

M. M. Alam is a Pakistan-based working journalist since 1981. Karachi University faculty gold medalist Alam began his career four decades ago by writing for Dawn, Pakistan’s highest circulating English daily. He has worked for region’s leading publications, global aviation periodicals including Rotors (of USA) and vetted New York Times as permanent employee of daily Express Tribune. Alam regularly covers international aviation and defense-related events including Salon Du Bourget (France), Farnborough (United Kingdom), Dubai (UAE). Alam has reported thousands of events and interviewed hundreds of people in Pakistan, UAE, EU, UK and USA. Being Francophone Alam also coordinates with a number of French publications.