North Korea said on Saturday it would immediately suspend nuclear and missile tests, scrap its nuclear test site and instead pursue economic growth and peace, ahead of planned summits with South Korea and the United States.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country no longer needed to conduct nuclear tests or intercontinental ballistic missile tests because it had completed its goal of developing the weapons, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
Kim is scheduled to hold talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in next week and with U.S. President Donald Trump in late May or early June.
The pledge to halt the development of nuclear weapons, initiated by his grandfather, would mean a significant reversal for Kim, 34, who for years has celebrated such weapons as a pillar of his regime’s legitimacy and power.
A testing freeze and commitment to close the test site alone would fall short of Washington’s demand that Pyongyang completely dismantle all its nuclear weapons and missiles.
But announcing the concessions now, rather than during summit meetings, shows Kim is serious about decentralization talks, experts say.
“The northern nuclear test ground of the DPRK will be dismantled to transparently guarantee the discontinuance of the nuclear test,” KCNA said after Kim convened a plenary session of the Central Committee of the ruling Worker’s Party on Friday.
The North’s official name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
The Pyunggye-ri site is North Korea’s only known nuclear test site. All of its six underground tests were conducted there, including the last and largest in September.
