North Korea Conducts ‘Very Important Test’

As nuclear negotiations between North Korea and the United States remain deadlocked, North Korea once again conducted a ‘very important test’ at its Sohae satellite launch site, state media confirmed recently. 

In the official statement carried by the state-sponsored media KCNA news agency, a spokesman for North Korea’s National Academy of Science said, “A very important test was carried out at the Sohae Satellite Launch Site on December 7th, 2019.” He further added that the result of the latest test will have an ‘important effect’ on changing the ‘strategic status’ of North Korea.

During the summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Pyongyang last year North Korea leader Kim Jong Un had agreed to close the Sohae site, as part of trust-building measures, but the test proved that the site is operational.

Since June 2018, Kim Jong Un has also held three meetings with the US President Donald Trump but very little progress has been made in the direction of denuclearisation of North Korea.

The latest test comes at a time when Pyongyang is increasing its pressure on the United States, ahead of its year-end deadline to propose a new offer to kick start stalled nuclear talks between the two countries.

Recently, North Korea’s deputy foreign minister also warned of returning to a war of words with the United States, threatening to resume talks referring to Trump as a ‘dotard’, which is North Korea’s nickname for the US leader, frequently used at the height of tensions in 2017.

North Korea warned the United States that if they use military force against North Korea it would take ‘prompt corresponding actions at any level’, after a day the United States threatened to do so. 

The US President Donald Trump, at the recent NATO summit, has boasted Washington’s ‘most powerful military’ and said, “Hopefully, we don’t have to use it, but if we do, we will use it. If we have to, we will do it.”

North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations, Kim Song on Saturday, also said that the denuclearization process is now off the table because of he claimed that it is a time-saving trick by the United States to benefit a domestic political agenda. 

Ambassador Kim Song said in a statement, “We do not need to have lengthy talks with the US now and the denuclearization is already gone out of the negotiation table”.

Earlier this month, North Korea warned indirectly that it would send the US a ‘Christmas gift’, and here comes the gift in the form of the ‘very important test’.