Kim Jong-un is taking a play out of his father’s denuclearization playbook with his announcement that he will seal the shafts at this nuclear test site:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has promised to dismantle a “northern” nuclear test site in May in full view of experts and journalists from South Korea and the United States, Cheong Wa Dae said on Sunday.
Kim made the promise during talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Friday, the president’s top press secretary Yoon Young-chan said.
Kim said the site is still “usable” and “there are two more shafts that are bigger than the one (to be dismantled) which are sturdy,” according to Yoon.
Kim did not specify the location of the site to be dismantled, but given the North’s past announcement, it is believed to be in Gilju, North Hamgyong Province. On April 21, Kim declared the shutdown of the Gilju site, along with a freeze on missile and nuclear tests. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but when I read this I though immediately back to 2008 when Kim Jong-il blew up a cooling tower at it Yongbyon nuclear plant:
In a gesture demonstrating its commitment to halt its nuclear weapons program, North Korea blew up the most prominent symbol of its plutonium production Friday.
The 60 foot, or 18meter, cooling tower at North Korea’s main nuclear power plant collapsed in a heap of shattered concrete and twisted steel, filmed by international and regional television broadcasters invited to witness the event.
The destruction of the tower, the most visible element of the nuclear complex at Yongbyon, about 100 kilometers, or 60 miles north of Pyongyang, bore witness to the incremental progress that has been made in U.S.-led multilateral efforts to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs. [NY Times, June 27, 2008]
The North Koreans eventually rebuilt the cooling tower and reopened the Yongbyon nuclear facility in 2013. As little as two months ago satellite imagery showed the plant producing plutonium. Much like with the destruction of the cooling tower, the sealing of shafts at their Punggye-ri nuclear test site is easily reversible at a time of the Kim regime’s choosing. However, when this event happens most of the international media and Korean leftists will once again seize on the dramatic images this is sure to bring as evidence that the Kim regime really means to denuclearize this time.
I will know Kim Jong-un means to denuclearize when the entire Yongbyon plant is demolished and his nuclear weapons and material are removed from the country. Until this happens everyone is just continuing to play along with this great facade which the closure of the nuclear test site will be another part of.
The Commie propaganda playbook never ceases to amaze.