A senior US official has stated that North Korea, led by Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, could be planning for next week its first nuclear weapon test in almost five years, Reuters reported on Thursday, 7 April.
Sung Kim, who has been the United States Special Representative for North Korea Policy since 2021, has warned that according to intel, Washington believes that Pyongyang would want to demonstrate its growing nuclear weapons capacity on 15 April.
That day is an annual holiday to celebrate the 110th birth anniversary of Kim Il-sung, the country’s founder.
"We are worried that in connection with the upcoming anniversary, the DPRK may be tempted to take another provocative action," Kim told reporters.
"I don't want to speculate too much, but I think it could be another missile launch, it could be a nuclear test," he added.
Relations between North and South Korea have also not been their best in the recent past.
Earlier this week, Kim Yo-jong, the sister of the supreme leader, warned that North Korea's nuclear forces would "annihilate" the military of their southern neighbours if Seoul launched a pre-emptive strike against Pyongyang.
In the last 16 years, North Korea has conducted six nuclear tests and the last one was in 2017.
The tests then suddenly stopped as Kim Jong-un prepared for his first denuclearisation summit with then US President Donald Trump in 2018.
The current US administration led by President Joe Biden has called for the resumption of talks "without preconditions", something that has been repeatedly refused by the North Korean supreme leader.
The US demand, however, of the denuclearisation of North Korea is unlikely to persuade Kim Jong-un to even commence talks.
Sung Kim also said that North Korea's ballistic missile launches create instability in the region, and that Washington would call on Beijing to send a strong message to Pyongyang.
"We believe that the unprecedented number of DPRK ballistic missile launches this year and the instability they bring to the Korean peninsula are obviously in nobody’s interest, and we call on [China], as well as Russia, to work with us to send a very clear message through the security council that North Korea's actions are unacceptable," he asserted, reported The Guardian.
(With inputs from Reuters and The Guardian.)
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