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SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea has tested a new tactical weapon, the official Northern media said on Friday, saying Kim Jong-un had witnessed the event during his first public visit to a site. Weapon test since the country launched its intercontinental ballistic missile test last November.
State media did not identify the weapon and the test did not appear to violate the voluntary moratorium imposed by North Korea on nuclear ballistic missile and long-range missile testing. year. Nevertheless, Kim's renewed activities at weapons testing sites could complicate the already stalled talks between North Korea and the United States on how to remove nuclear weapons from the North.
North Korea tends to use the prospect of increasing tensions on the Korean peninsula as a lever when negotiations with Washington are not favorable. In recent weeks, it has issued vague threats to resume nuclear weapons and ballistic missile testing if the United States continues to refuse to make concessions such as relaxing sanctions.
Friday, the North Korean central news agency, North Korea, said that Kim had gone to the testing ground of the Academy of Defense Science, the center weapons development in North Korea, and had "overseen a newly developed state-of-the-art weapons test".
"After seeing the power of the tactical weapon, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un was so excited to say that another great job had been done by the defense scientists and the workers in the ammunition sector. to increase the country's defense capacity, "the news agency reported.
The South Korean daily Chosun Ilbo on Friday quoted anonymous government sources as saying that North Korea had tested multiple launchers this month. In addition to the nuclear weapons of the North, such rockets are considered one of the greatest military threats against South Korea, as they are deployed near the inter-Korean border to target the southern capital, Seoul, a city of 10 million inhabitants.
Recent satellite images have also revealed that North Korea has built what analysts think they can be. a replica of the South Korean army headquarters for the practice of possible targets.
Mr. Kim attended the last public arms test last November, when his country launched its Hwasong-15 ICBM, which was widely regarded as powerful enough to reach the continental United States.
Many Western experts still doubt that North Korea has all the technologies needed to deliver a small nuclear warhead on such missiles. Nevertheless, after the November tests, Kim said that his country no longer needed to carry out nuclear and long-range missile tests because it had reached the capacity to strike the United States with nuclear missiles.
At a meeting of the ruling Workers Party in April, Mr. Kim also retired. byungjin, or "parallel advanced", policy of simultaneous pursuit of economic growth and development of nuclear weapons. He said that he would focus on rebuilding the economy.
Since then, he has met three times with South Korea's President Moon Jae-in to discuss easing tensions in the Korean peninsula. He also met President Trump in Singapore in June and promised to "work towards the complete denuclearization" of the peninsula. North Korea has closed its only known underground experimental site and has agreed to dismantle some missile test facilities.
But Singapore's agreement was short on the details, and subsequent negotiations on its implementation have since stalled.
North Korea has pledged to dismantle its Yongbyon nuclear power plant, a nuclear bomb fuel production center, and take other measures, but will only do so if Washington takes "corresponding" measures Such as easing sanctions and signing a peace declaration. He also expressed anger in recent days over South Korea's resumption of small-scale military exercises with the United States.
But Washington is asking North Korea to take more important measures first, such as the declaration of all its nuclear facilities. Skeptics in Washington have accused North Korea of abandoning just enough to create the illusion of progress while allowing Trump to claim victory.
Despite Kim's much vaunted summit meetings with regional leaders, his country has never given up its repeated instructions to "mass-produce" its nuclear warheads and delivery missiles. In a report released this week, the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said it had located more than a dozen North Korean missile bases.
Although both Seoul and Washington said that the missile bases were closely monitored by their military intelligence officials, the report reiterated that North Korea's missile threat remained intact, despite repeated Mr. Trump on efforts to denuclearize the North. A series of UN Security Council resolutions ban North Korea from developing and testing ballistic missiles.
