SEOUL, Dec 8, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – North Korea said Sunday it had carried out a
“very important test” at its space launch centre, as Pyongyang ramps up
pressure on Washington over stalled nuclear talks.
The announcement of Saturday’s test at the Sohae satellite launch site came
just hours after US President Donald Trump said he’d be “surprised” by any
hostile action from the North.
“A very important test took place at the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground
on the afternoon of December 7, 2019,” a spokesman for North Korea’s Academy
of the National Defence Science said.
The result of the latest test will have an “important effect” on changing
the “strategic position” of North Korea, the spokesman said in a statement
carried by the KCNA news agency.
The statement did not provide further details on the test.
Satellite imagery taken on December 5 showed a large container box at the
site that was “a decent indicator of an impending engine test”, Jeffrey Lewis
of the US-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies had said ahead
of Pyongyang’s statement.
Sohae, on North Korea’s northwest coast, is ostensibly a facility designed
for putting satellites into orbit.
But Pyongyang has carried out several rocket launches there that were
condemned by the US and others as disguised long-range ballistic missile
tests.
Rocket engines are easily repurposed for use in missiles and the
international community has called Pyongyang’s space programme a fig leaf for
weapons tests.
North Korea dismantled the test stand at Sohae amid a rapid rapprochement
in 2018 but reassembled it this year, Lewis said, adding, “Still, we had not
seen any activity at the test stand” until now.
“It is clear that this is one more sign that North Korea is conducting more
missile-related activities as Kim Jong Un’s end-of-year deadline for
sanctions relief approaches,” he said, referring to the North Korean leader.
– End-of-year deadline –
The latest test comes as Pyongyang is ramping up pressure ahead of its
December 31 deadline for the US to propose a new offer to kickstart stalled
nuclear talks.
Hours before North Korea announced its latest test, Trump had emphasised
his “very good relationship” with Kim.
“Well, we’ll see about North Korea. I’d be surprised if North Korea acted
hostiley,” he said on Saturday afternoon in Washington DC. “(Kim) knows I
have an election coming up. I don’t think he wants to interfere with that.
But we’ll have to see.”
Following his first summit with Kim in June 2018, Trump said Kim had agreed
to destroy “a major missile engine testing site” without naming the facility.
Kim then agreed to shutter the Sohae site during a summit last year with
South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Pyongyang as part of trust-building
measures.
Kim has held three meetings with Trump since June 2018 but little progress
has been made in efforts towards denuclearisation.
On Thursday, the North’s vice foreign minister warned of returning to a war
of words with the US, threatening to resume referring to Trump as a “dotard”
— Pyongyang’s nickname for the US leader at the height of tensions in 2017.
The comments came a day after it warned that if the US used military force
against the North it would take “prompt corresponding actions at any level”.
At the recent NATO summit, Trump boasted about Washington’s “most powerful
military”, adding: “Hopefully, we don’t have to use it, but if we do, we’ll
use it. If we have to, we’ll do it.”