Pyongyang mulls resuming nuclear, ICBM tests

Seoul, Jan 20 (EFE).- North Korea is considering “restarting all temporarily-suspended activities,” which could include nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests, state-run Korean Central News Agency reported Thursday.

In a meeting on Wednesday, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea – the party’s highest decision making body – “reassigned the policy tasks for the national defense of immediately bolstering more powerful physical means which can efficiently control the hostile moves of the US against the DPRK” (North Korea’s official name).

It also urged to “reconsider in an overall scale the trust-building measures that we took on our own initiative” during talks with South Korea and the United States aimed at easing tensions in the Korean Peninsula and “to promptly examine the issue of restarting all temporarily-suspended activities.”

The powerful politburo also “unanimously recognized that we should make more thorough preparation for a long-term confrontation with the US imperialists,” KCNA added.

In 2018, North Korea had announced that it would refrain from conducting nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests within the framework of the inter-Korean rapprochement process that led to negotiations for the denuclearization of the peninsula and the first-ever summit between North Korean and US leaders.

Talks between these two countries have been paralyzed for more than two years and tensions have escalated again following North Korea’s recent missile launches, to which the US has responded with more sanctions.

Pyongyang said that the “US viciously slurred our state and committed the foolish act of taking over 20 independent sanctions measures” and accused the current administration of persisting “in maneuvers to deprive the DPRK of its right to self-defense,” according to KCNA.

The meeting was chaired by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the Central Committee headquarters.

North Korea also accused the US of “seriously threatening” its security by deploying sophisticated weapons in the neighboring South Korea, as well as strategic nuclear weapons in the region around the peninsula.

The meeting of the North’s top decision-making body comes two days after its latest missile launch, which included two tests of what Pyongyang claims were hypersonic missiles, and several ballistic missile tests.

North Korea has tested a total of six projectiles since the start of the year in a display of the sophistication of its arsenal.

The first two tests of the year, carried out on Jan. 5 and Jan. 11, led the US to impose new sanctions against the Asian country, to which Pyongyang responded with more launches on Jan. 14 and Jan. 17.

A closed-door meeting of the United Nations Security Council is scheduled on Thursday, in which a new round of sanctions against Pyongyang could be discussed. EFE

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