World guesses as DPRK reports conducting ‘very important test’
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THE Democratic People’s Republic of Korea carried out “a very important test” at the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground on Saturday afternoon, the Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday.
The DPRK’s Academy of National Defense Science reported the results of “the successful test of great significance” to the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the report said.
The test will “have an important effect on changing the strategic position of the DPRK once again in the near future,” the KCNA added without elaborating.
The site is a rocket-testing ground that US officials said Pyongyang had vowed to close.
The reported test comes as a year-end deadline DPRK has imposed nears, warning it could take a “new path” amid stalled denuclearization talks with the United States. The KCNA report did not specify what was tested.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s defence ministry said South Korea and the United States are cooperating closely in monitoring activities at major DPRK sites including Tongchang-ri, the area where Sohae is located.
Missile experts said it appeared likely DPRK had conducted a static test of a rocket engine, rather than a missile launch, which is usually quickly detected by neighboring South Korea and Japan.
“If it is indeed a static engine test for a new solid or liquid fuel missile, it is yet another loud signal that the door for diplomacy is quickly slamming, if it isn’t already,” said Vipin Narang, a nuclear affairs expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States.
“This could be a very credible signal of what might await the world after the New Year.”
Kim Dong-yub, a former South Korean Navy officer who teaches at Kyungnam University in Seoul, said DPRK may have tested a solid fuel rocket engine, which could allow DPRK to field ICBMs that are easier to hide and faster to deploy.
“DPRK has already entered the ‘new path’ that they talked about,” he said.
DPRK has called on the United States to change its policy of insisting on Pyongyang’s unilateral denuclearization and demanded relief from punishing sanctions.
On Saturday, DPRK’s ambassador to the United Nations said denuclearization was now off the negotiating table with the United States and lengthy talks with Washington are not needed.
DPRK has announced it would convene a rare gathering of top ruling party officials later this month. Last week, state media showed photos of leader Kim Jong Un taking a second symbolic horse ride on the country’s sacred Mt Paektu.
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