North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has vowed to close his country's nuclear test site in May and will let U.S. and South Korean experts and media confirm the closure, the South Korean presidential office said Sunday as it briefed the nation on Kim's remarks made at the inter-Korean summit.
The pledge can be seen as the latest show of Kim's resolve to seek denuclearization as the United States prepares for its first-ever summit talks with North Korea. U.S. President Donald Trump said at a rally in Michigan on Saturday that he expects to meet with Kim "over the next three or four weeks."
The shutdown of the Punggye-ri site in the country's northeast is expected to precede planned talks between Kim and Trump, a high-level official of the presidential office said.
(North Korea's Punggye-ri nuclear test site on March 17, 2018
[DigitalGlobe/38 North via Getty/Kyodo]
The United States is pushing for a "complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization" of North Korea, which claims to have developed a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the U.S. mainland.
But Kim did not refer to the closure or abandonment of nuclear facilities other than the Punggye-ri site during his talks with South Korean President Moon Jae In, the official said.
Punggye-ri is the site where North Korea has carried out all of its nuclear tests to date, beginning in 2006, including the most powerful one in September last year.
(Korea Summit Press Pool)
Kim denied claims that North Korea is closing down "an unusable test site," according to the office. "There are two bigger tunnels than the existing test facilities and that they are in a very good condition," he was quoted as saying.
A plan to let experts and journalists from South Korea and the United States travel to the North to see the test facility is intended to "transparently" reveal the shutdown to the international community, the North Korean leader explained.
Kim was also quoted as saying there is no reason for North Korea to possess nuclear weapons if his country can build a relationship of trust with the United States, along with receiving reassurances of non-aggression and a promise to formally bring an end to the 1950-1953 Korean War.
The Korean War ended with a cease-fire, not a peace treaty. The armistice was signed by the U.S.-led United Nations Command, Chinese forces and North Korea. The two Koreas to this day stare down each other at their shared border.
North Korea has long pressed the United States for a peace treaty as a way to ensure the survival of its regime. A security guarantee is seen as a prerequisite for the North to give up its nuclear arms, which it touts as its "treasured sword" to defend against the "hostile policies" of the United States and its allies.
Kim also promised that military force will not be used against South Korea "by any means," according to the South Korean presidential office.
He appeared to be confident about engaging in dialogue with the United States, saying that the country will get to know "once our talks begin that I am not the kind of person who will use nuclear weapons against the South or the United States across the Pacific."
Following Friday's inter-Korean summit, Trump held phone talks with Moon in which they agreed to work together to ensure that Trump and Kim can reach a concrete deal to completely rid North Korea of nuclear weapons, the office also said Sunday.
About a week before the Kim-Moon summit, North Korea announced through its state-run media that it would dismantle the Punggye-ri site and halt its nuclear and long-range missile tests, but the timing of the closure had not been clear.
In a joint declaration released after the summit held on the southern side of the border village Panmunjeom, Kim and Moon agreed to pursue "complete" denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and to strive to declare a formal end to the Korean War this year.