tensions with the United States
North Korea hints at possible nuclear test resumption
Kim Jong Un chaired the party congress. Photo: -/KCNA/dpa
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North Korea wants to stop “hostile actions by the United States”, as announced at a party conference. But what means will the country use to do this under Kim Jong Un?
After new US sanctions, North Korea indirectly threatened to test nuclear bombs and ICBMs again.
At a meeting, the Politburo of the Workers’ Party ordered that the confidence-building measures taken by North Korea itself be reconsidered and “immediately to consider resuming all temporarily suspended activities,” the state media reported. Experts saw this as an allusion to the 2018 test ban on long-range missiles and nuclear weapons set by North Korea itself.
After the reports, the party meeting chaired by ruler Kim Jong Un discussed how future measures against the United States should be directed. The US government has been accused of pursuing hostile policies and having reached “a danger line”. The task of national defense must therefore be to strengthen the “physical means by which hostile actions by the United States are controlled”.
There have long been fears abroad that North Korea could resume its nuclear tests. Kim had already declared at the end of 2019 that Pyongyang was no longer bound by its test moratorium. The background was the lack of progress in the US negotiations with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program.
The US Treasury Department recently passed new sanctions against North Korea. Among other things, five North Koreans were put on the sanctions list, whom the ministry accused of procuring goods for their country’s mass destruction and missile programs. In addition, the United States wants to enforce new sanctions through the United Nations. The US was responding to six short-range ballistic missile tests conducted by North Korea since last September. UN resolutions ban the country from such tests. Ballistic missiles are typically surface-to-surface missiles. Depending on the design, they deliver conventional, biological, chemical or even nuclear warheads to the target.