Tag: nuclear test

It seems like North Korea has been ready to do a nuclear test for a few months. However, it appears they are waiting for the right moment to justify them conducting the nuclear test to mitigate international condemnation. The fact that the ROK has not unilaterally cancelled the Inter-Korean military agreement despite all the provocations in recent months has denied them one of their justifications for the nuclear test:

 Prime Minister Han Duck-soo has said North Korea is ready to conduct a nuclear bomb test, but South Korea and its allies have always been prepared for the North’s major provocation.

“We gather that they are ready,” Han told Britain’s Sky News in an interview, “although we do not know exactly when” a nuclear test would happen.

North Korea has launched a flurry of short- to long-range missile tests so far this year and has widely been expected to carry out what would be its seventh nuclear test.

Han said South Korea and its allies have been on alert over the possibility of North Korea’s nuclear test.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, the Kim regime will eventually find something to justify their test. The real question is what does the U.S. and the ROK do in response?

The Kim regime continues to look for excuses to justify their long expected nuclear test to the international community, but I doubt anyone other than the usual suspects are going to buy it:

North Korea threatened to unleash a powerful action if the U.S. does not halt joint military drills with partners including South Korea, in what might be an effort by Kim Jong Un to lay the groundwork for his first nuclear test in five years.

“If the U.S. continuously persists in the grave military provocations, the DPRK will take into account more powerful follow-up measures,” the state’s foreign ministry said in a statement released on official media Tuesday. Such ministry statements are often used by the country, officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, to make clear the warning is coming from Kim’s regime.

The U.S. and South Korea this week started joint air drills known as Vigilant Storm that will run through Friday and involve about 240 aircraft in about 1,600 sorties to “hone their wartime capabilities,” the U.S. 7th Air Force said in a statement. The drills have added to a series of joint exercises on land, sea and air in recent weeks, some of which have also included Japan, that have led to complaints and provocations from Pyongyang.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Why not abolish this pact when the ROK is the only one following it:

North Korea’s recent missile launches are widely viewed as a prelude to a seventh nuclear test and South Korea is exploring various response measures to deal with additional provocations. One of the measures being mentioned is scrapping the 2018 inter-Korean comprehensive military agreement which calls on the two Koreas to cease “hostile activities” against each other, including military exercises near the inter-Korean border.

Conservatives are urging Seoul to consider pulling out of the agreement, which they claim restrains South Korea’s defense capabilities by limiting military exercises and reconnaissance activities. 

“We should declare the scrapping of the military agreement if North Korea carries out a seventh nuclear weapon test,” Ruling People Power Party (PPP) interim leader Rep. Chung Jin-suk wrote on Facebook on Friday, a day after the North deployed 12 military aircraft for an air strike drill.

“If we destroy the pact, our military’s flight boundaries and firing exercise zones in the East and West seas will expand, bolstering our capabilities in surveilling North Korea and deterrence firepower,” Chung added. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Here is one view on why North Korea hasn’t conducted their long predicted nuclear test:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has yet to press the nuclear button, despite urgent warnings from South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities that the North has completed preparations for another nuclear test.

Diplomatic observers agree that a nuclear test is still imminent. But they believe the delay may be due to pressure from China or because Pyongyang is weighing the possible political repercussions. 

Citing comments made by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the Eighth Workers’ Party Conference in January 2021 that his country will enhance its nuclear and missile capabilities, as well as the 31 missiles launched so far this year and the reconstruction of its nuclear test site, Joseph DeTrani, a former U.S. special envoy for negotiations with North Korea, said the reclusive country is prepared for a seventh nuclear test.

However, DeTrani said pressure from China may be behind the delayed nuclear test, because increasing tensions on the Korean Peninsula with South Korea and the United States is not in the best interests of Beijing.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but it is believed that Emperor President Xi has too much on his plate right now to deal with increased tensions on the Korean peninsula if a nuclear test was to happen.

It looks like a seventh nuclear test by North Korea will happen in the near term:

North Korea has been testing a nuclear triggering device apparently in preparation for what would be the country’s seventh nuclear test, a senior presidential official said Wednesday.

The experiments have been taking place at a location away from Punggye-ri, the site of all six North Korean nuclear tests to date, said Kim Tae-hyo, first deputy director of the National Security Office, without naming the place.

“Operation tests of a nuclear detonation device, which are to prepare for the seventh nuclear test at Punggye-ri, are being detected,” Kim told reporters. “The possibility of an imminent nuclear test in the next day or two is low, but after that, there is certainly a possibility.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I guess we will see if the North Koreans conduct a nuclear test during President Biden’s trip to South Korea. I doubt they will because that would be extremely provocative, however I would not be surprised if they did one shortly after such as during the Memorial Day weekend. However, I would not be surprised if they did a missile test during President Biden’s visit:

Excavation work at North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear testing site suggests the regime is gearing up for a seventh nuclear test, according to a U.S.-based think tank.    
   
Beyond Parallel, a North Korea analysis portal operated by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said that Pyongyang is making preparations at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in Kilju County, North Hamgyong Province based on satellite images captured on Tuesday.  
   
Photos of Punggye-ri – the only known nuclear testing facility in North Korea – shows “continued activity outside the new portal” for a tunnel leading into an underground test site. Support equipment around the tunnel’s entrance indicates ongoing work inside the tunnel.  
   
Further evidence cited by Beyond Parallel for the possibility of an upcoming test included changes in lumber piles, the renovation of existing buildings, and construction of new buildings in the main administration and support areas in and around the test site, suggesting a continued expansion of the support infrastructure. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

If the North Koreans conduct a nuclear or ICBM test, I think that would officially end diplomatic efforts:

The United States looks set to break a promise not to hold military exercises with South Korea, putting talks aimed at getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons at risk, the North Korean Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

The United States’ pattern of “unilaterally reneging on its commitments” is leading Pyongyang to reconsider its own commitments to discontinue tests of nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), the ministry said in a pair of statements released through state news agency KCNA.The United States looks set to break a promise not to hold military exercises with South Korea, putting talks aimed at getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons at risk, the North Korean Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

Reuters

You can read more at the link.

It appears even the South Korean reporters are dubious of the closure of Punggye-ri nuclear test site:

North Korea said it had totally destroyed all tunnels at its Punggye-ri nuclear test site, Thursday, but international reporters who witnessed the event said their lack of expertise in nuclear technology meant they couldn’t verify the complete dismantlement.

The group of reporters from South Korea, the United States, the United Kingdom, China and Russia observed the demolition following a briefing by a deputy director of the North Korean Nuclear Research Institute.

“We had already discarded the first tunnel in the east, after the successful test in 2006. In the second one in the north, the country held five nuclear tests from 2009 to 2017,” the official, who refused to be named, was quoted as saying by the pool reporters.

The research institute officials repeatedly said the third and fourth tunnels, which have not been used, have remained intact despite a series of nuclear tests in the second one. “The third one is the widest. It’s always ready. The fourth was created because a bigger facility was needed,” another official said.

The first explosion at 11 a.m. destroyed the second tunnel. North Korean officials asked photographers and cameramen “Are you ready to shoot?” before a thunderous roar resonated throughout Mount Mantap following a countdown of “three, two, one.”  [Korea Times]

You can read and see more pictures of this dog and pony show at the link.  Interestingly the North Koreans even offered the reporters spring water to drink from the mountain to prove there is no radiation leakage, but offered no proof there was no radiation.

Here is the play-by-play of the Punggye-ri dog and pony show:

North Korea destroyed its only known nuclear test site with a series of explosions over several hours on Thursday, taking an initial step toward denuclearization, according to South Korean journalists visiting the area.

The North dynamited the North Portal, also referred to as Tunnel No. 2, at Punggye-ri, a northeastern remote area, at around 11 a.m., they said in a brief pool report delivered by phone.

Two other tunnels were destroyed at 2:17 p.m., followed by the explosion of barracks, observation towers and other facilities on the ground.

The blasts ended at 4:17 p.m., the journalists said without clarifying whether Tunnel No. 1, or the East Portal, was removed as well. Among the four tunnels in the zone, the East Portal was evidently abandoned earlier, according to 38 North, a U.S.-based website.

Plumes of smoke soon covered the mountain.

Reporters and television crews from the United States, China, Russia and Britain were also invited to witness the ceremony.

They filmed the spectacle, but footage is expected to be available only after they return to Wonsan, the North’s eastern coastal city, presumably on Friday morning.  [Yonhap]

As I have long said the closure of the nuclear test site is largely meaningless because if they decide they need to conduct more tests they can just dig another shaft at a time of their choosing.

It looks like the North Koreans are satisfied that they made their point to South Korea about how unhappy they are about the Ningpo 13 and have folded and allowed South Korean reporters to cover the upcoming dog and pony show at Punggye-ri:

A group of eight South Korean journalists flew into North Korea on Wednesday afternoon after Pyongyang, at the last minute, accepted Seoul’s list of reporters to cover the dismantling of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site.

Eight journalists from two media outlets departed at around 12:30 p.m. from Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, Gyeonggi, on a South Korean government plane and flew directly to Kalma Airport in North Korea’s eastern port city of Wonsan.

After arriving in Wonsan, they joined journalists from four other countries – China, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – to board a special train to head to the site of the demolition of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site to take place on Thursday or Friday.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.