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North Korea Announces Plans To Dismantle Nuclear Test Site (npr.org)
The Associated Press is reporting North Korea has announced plans to dismantle its nuclear test site between May 23 and 25. The dismantling will occur before President Trump is scheduled to meet with Kim Jong-un in Singapore on June 12. NPR reports: Reuters reports that Punggye-ri nuclear test site has been the location of all of North Korea's six known nuclear tests. At the site, there's a system of tunnels under the mountain Mount Mantap. Journalists from the United States, South Korea, China, Russia and Britain will be invited to watch a special ceremony in which all of the tunnels at the testing ground will be destroyed and observation and research facilities and guard units will be taken down. The North Korean government will provide journalists with a charter flight from Beijing to Wosnan, North Korea. From there, a train will take them to the test site in the northeast part of the country.
The AP also reports that at a ruling party meeting last month, North Korea announced the plan to close the nuclear testing ground, along with a commitment to suspend all tests of nuclear devices and ICBMs. At that same meeting, however, North Korea said it has been performing a kind of nuclear test classified as "subcritical." The "subcritical" experiments give scientists an opportunity to test weapons without causing an actual nuclear chain reaction and explosion.
The AP also reports that at a ruling party meeting last month, North Korea announced the plan to close the nuclear testing ground, along with a commitment to suspend all tests of nuclear devices and ICBMs. At that same meeting, however, North Korea said it has been performing a kind of nuclear test classified as "subcritical." The "subcritical" experiments give scientists an opportunity to test weapons without causing an actual nuclear chain reaction and explosion.
Decades from now, I hope that some Chinese official lets us know in his memoirs just how close Kim Fat Ass came to getting a PRC bullet to the head.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I believe asking nicely is what Obama did. Nice fellow, Obama.
I don't know how much Trump had to do with this.
Remember North Korea is smaller than Hewlett-Packard, they the US could easily destroy NK; we don't mostly because of politics. I know that if *I* were Kim Jong-un, and that wacky Trump dude were threatening to nuke my country, pointing out his big nuclear button, that would make me a bit more nervous than Obma's approach did. Trump seems like the kind of guy who just might decide, against the advice of his advisers, to go ahead and send a flight of three B-52s loaded up with 60 cruise missiles to go ahead and eliminate most of the major buildings in North Korea.
Keep in mind, North Korea has much less industry (gdp) than Birmingham, Alabama; Jacksonville; or Memphis.
It would be easy for Trump to just wake up one morning and decide "I'm tired of little Rocket Man. Let's blow up North Korea today and be done with it". It might not be a GOOD idea, but it would be easy for the US to do. Trump just might do something that Obama and Bush wouldn't do.
It may be that Trump asked nicely AFTER he grabbed them by the crotch. That's more Trump's MO, just asking nicely isn't really his thing - even when he should.
Without knowing, I can only listen to what the people who are in a better position to know have to say.
The most interesting account I saw was from, of all things, a Pakistani newspaper. It said that the test set off an earthquake. It caused a tunnel to collapse... with about 100 people in it. They may have been many of NK's nuclear scientists. And when they sent people in to try to rescue them, another collapse took out another hundred or so people. So the site is entirely unusable, and they may have lost many of their nuclear scientists in the process.
I guess they had enough physicists but not enough geologists.