North Korea again announced an „important test“ today on its controversial Sohae satellite launch base. This was „successfully“ carried out late in the evening yesterday, said a spokesman for the North Korean Defense Academy, according to the state news agency KCNA. The „research success“ served to strengthen the „strategic nuclear deterrence“.
A week ago, North Korea announced a similar test in Sohae. Launchers with satellites were launched from the facility in 2012 and 2016. Internationally, the launches were seen as disguised tests of ballistic missiles and were strongly condemned.
Nuclear talks in dead end
North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un pledged to shut down Sohae at a meeting with South Korea’s President Moon Jae In last year. With US President Donald Trump, Kim had basically agreed on a denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, but without agreeing specific steps. At their summit in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi at the end of February, however, Kim and Trump failed to reach agreement on steps towards nuclear disarmament in North Korea.
Since then, the nuclear talks between the United States and North Korea have been at a dead end. Pyongyang is asking Washington to make concessions by the end of the year.
