N Korea preps nuclear site demolition despite US summit doubts

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N Korea preps nuclear site demolition despite US summit doubts

3:05 CAT | 23 May 2018

North Korea's Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site. Photo: HO / AIRBUS DEFENCE & SPACE AND 38 NORTH / CNES / AFP

South Korea – Invited foreign journalists gathered in North Korea Wednesday 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.

Newly acquired satellite imagery by CSIS from May 19 shows that preparations for the shutdown of the North Korean nuclear test site at Punggye-ri appear to be underway, and that a number of facilities have been shuttered https://t.co/DArwovCTKL pic.twitter.com/qlzOT2F0HD

— H. Andrew Schwartz (@handrewschwartz) May 21, 2018

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.

Source: AFP