Posted on 04/21/2018 8:09:45 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
(News Focus) N. Korea's WMD test moratorium deja vu raises cautious summit expectations
2018/04/21 11:54
By Lee Chi-dong
SEOUL, April 21 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's announcement of a moratorium on most of its nuclear and missile activities is the highlight of the unpredictable communist nation's recent peace overture and a potential prelude to a breakthrough deal in the upcoming round of summit diplomacy.
The Kim Jong-un regime said Saturday it will immediately suspend nuclear and missile tests and shut down the nuclear test site in Punggye-ri, where it conducted six experiments.
It was summarizing the results of a key Workers' Party of Korea session held on Friday.
The decision came less than a week before Kim's summit talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the truce village of Panmunjom. Kim will then sit down with United States President Donald Trump.
The statement hints at the possibility of Kim changing the course from the so-called dual-track, or byongjin in Korean, policy of developing nuclear weapons and promoting economic growth.
This photo, carried by North Korea's Central News Agency, on April 21, 2018, shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presiding over a plenary meeting of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea's central committee a day earlier. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap) This photo, carried by North Korea's Central News Agency, on April 21, 2018, shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presiding over a plenary meeting of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea's central committee a day earlier. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
The North said it will pursue economic development and peace on the peninsula.
It's unclear whether the goodwill gesture reflects the secretive nation's strategic decision for a new era or if it is part of a typical tactic to buy time by concealing its true intentions.
Both Seoul and Washington welcomed Pyongyang's decision and held out cautious hopes for significant summit deals toward the full-fledged denuclearization of the peninsula and a peace regime.
The U.S. has, in particular, questioned the North's seriousness on denuclearization and demanded initial steps to show its willingness. In that sense, the North's measures can to some extent be regarded as responding to the U.S. call.
North Korea experts, however, cautioned media against excessive expectations.
The North has not announced a plan to pull the plug on the Yongbyon nuclear plant, the mecca of its uranium and plutonium production. It has not mentioned denuclearization in the latest statement.
Despite the freeze of the North's nuclear and missile tests, another potential deal breaker is the North's existing nuclear stockpile. Experts here believe it has 10-20 nuclear bombs and dozens of ICBM-class missiles.
The North has the track record of striking deals and reneging on them.
In early 2012, it agreed to a moratorium on long-range missile launches and nuclear activity in exchange for food aid. About a month later, however, it fired a long-range rocket followed by a nuclear test the next year.
The North said it won't use or transfer nuclear weapons, which may suggest that it will retain the existing ones rather than giving them up, said a professor at Kyungnam University's Far East Institute in Seoul.
P!
Kim will stop it now and start it again later ,but it’s not going to work this time
I like the part where they decided to close their test facility.
I’ll bet we did that for them.
We need to deal with stockpiles and they have to go.
I remember the worthless UN inspector in Iraq saying....unless Saddam tells us where they are, we're never going to find them.
Prediction; Trump will see the NOKO scam as it is and will walk out of the talk. Of course the lame stream media will attack Trump for the failure of the summit.
Nothing has changed this time!!! Waaaay Too early for champagne!
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