Kim Jong-un: no need for further nuclear & missile tests

‘Mission complete’: Kim Jong-un says no need for further nuclear & missile tests

RT,
20 April, 2018

North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs have allowed the country to secure strategic stability and peace, so there is no need for additional missile and nuke tests anymore, Kim Jong-un has proclaimed.

“From April 21, 2018, nuclear tests and intercontinental ballistic missile tests will be discontinued,” the Korean Central News Agency cited Kim as saying, at a plenary meeting of the central committee of the ruling Worker's Party of Korea (WPK).

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Furthermore, since North Korea’s nuclear test center has “completed” its mission, it “will be discarded in order to ensure the transparency of the nuclear test suspension,” KCNA reported.

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Announcing the country’s new course, the ruling party has declared that North Korea “will never use nuclear weapons, unless there is nuclear threat or nuclear provocation to our country, and in no case we will proliferate nuclear weapons and nuclear technology.”

In the announcement, North Korea noted that the “suspension of nuclear testing is an important process for global nuclear disarmament." Therefore, North Korea is willing to join international denuclearization efforts.

The extraordinary development comes just ahead of Kim's meeting with the South Korean president Moon Jae-in later this month. The announcement also follows US Secretary of State nominee Mike Pompeo’s recent secret meeting with the North Korean leader in Pyongyang.

US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, is also preparing to meet Kim in the coming weeks and has, on a number of occasions, vowed that Washington will keep up its "maximum pressure" campaign on North Korea until it agrees to denuclearize.

"Our campaign of maximum pressure will continue until North Korea will denuclearize," Trump said on Wednesday. "As I have said before, there is a bright path available to North Korea when it achieves denuclearization in a complete and verifiable and irreversible way. It will be a great day for them, it will be a great day for the world."