Invited foreign journalists gathered in North Korea Wednesday to witness the slated destruction of the reclusive regime's nuclear test site, a high profile gesture on the road to a summit with the US that Donald Trump now says might not happen.
In a surprise announcement Pyongyang said earlier this month that it planned to "completely" destroy the Punggye-ri facility in the country's northeast, a move welcomed by Washington and Seoul.
Punggye-ri has been the site of all six of the North's nuclear tests, the latest and by far the most powerful in September last year, which Pyongyang said was an H-bomb.
The demolition is due to take place sometime between Wednesday and Friday, depending on the weather.
The North has portrayed the destruction on the test site as a goodwill gesture ahead of planned June 12 summit between Kim and Trump in Singapore.
But doubts have since been cast by both sides on whether that potentially historic meeting will take place.
Last week Pyongyang threatened to pull out if Washington pressed for its unilateral nuclear disarmament. Trump also said the meeting could be delayed as he met with South Korean leader Moon Jae-in in Washington on Tuesday.
"There are certain conditions we want to happen. I think we'll get those conditions. And if we don't, we won't have the meeting," he told reporters, without elaborating on what those conditions might be.
- 'Thin ice' -
Politically, Trump has invested heavily in the success of his meeting with Kim, and so privately most US officials, as well as outside observers, believe it will go ahead.
But as the date draws near, Trump's divergence from his top aides, the differences between the two sides and these high stakes are coming into sharp relief.
Washington has made it clear it wants to see the "complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation" of the North.
Pyongyang has vowed it will never give up its nuclear deterrence until it feels safe from what is sees as US aggression.
"Everything is on thin ice," Koo Kab-woo, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told AFP.
"Trump wants a swift denuclearisation, something that will be done within his first term in office. In that case, he has to provide North Korea with a corresponding, swift security guarantee."
Observers will be watching the nuclear test site destruction ceremony closely for any clues to the North's mood.
Experts are divided over whether the demolition will render the site useless. Sceptics say the site has already outlived its usefulness with six successful nuclear tests in the bag and can quickly be rebuilt if needed.
Previous similar gestures by the North have been rapidly reversed when the international mood soured.
But others say the fact that North Korea agreed to destroy the site without preconditions or asking for something in return from Washington is significant.
- 'Game of chicken' -
Go Myong-hyun, an analyst at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said both sides were playing "a game of chicken" in the run up to the summit "to gain an upper hand in negotiations".
He said the destruction of the Punggye-ri test site would win Pyongyang international sympathy even if the summit collapses.
"North Korea can say to the international community that it did its best to achieve denuclearisation through negotiations but was pressured by the United States and couldn't do it," he said.
A handful of foreign journalists, including from South Korea, were invited to attend the demolition ceremony.
Reporters from China, the US and Russia departed on a charter flight from Beijing on Tuesday for the North Korean city of Wonsan.
From there they are expected to travel for some 20 hours up the east coast by train and bus to the remote test site -- a vivid illustration of the impoverished country's notoriously decrepit transport infrastructure.
South Korean journalists were initially left off the flight because they were not granted permission by Pyongyang.
But on Wednesday Seoul's Unification Ministry said they had been allowed to attend at the last minute.
The ministry said it planned to arrange a rare direct flight on Wednesday between the two countries, who remain technically at war, to ferry the journalists to Wonsan.
Agence France-Presse is one of a number of major media organisations not invited to cover the demolition.
On Seoul's streets Wednesday, South Koreans were divided on whether they thought Pyongyang was sincere.
"I don't really have any faith," said Korean-American businessman Peter Chung. "But you know, like I said I hope for the best."
But Kim Ye-seul, a nutritionist in her early thirties, said she didn't feel North Korea should be made to abandon its nuclear weapons.
"Do we really need denuclearisation as a premise for unification?" she said.
The nuclear test site North Korea plans to destroy
Seoul (AFP) May 23, 2018 - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's promise to dismantle his country's only known nuclear test site has shone the spotlight on the secretive facility near the Chinese border.
The Punggye-ri test site, located beneath a mountain in the country's northeast, hosted all six nuclear tests Pyongyang has conducted -- most recently last September.
Earlier this month the North announced it would blow up the site's access tunnels between May 23-25 in front of invited foreign media.
The announcement came as the diplomatic push for Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons gathered pace with an unprecedented summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump announced for June 12 in Singapore.
But both sides have since cast doubt on whether that meeting will take place.
- Ideal environment -
The site is located deep inside mountains in the northeastern North Hamgyong province, which borders China.
Surrounded by high, craggy peaks and carved deep into a granite mountain more than 2,000 metres (6,500 feet) high, the test site is said to be an ideal venue to withstand the huge forces unleashed by nuclear blasts.
The site's location only became known in 2006 when the North conducted its first nuclear test under Kim's late father Kim Jong Il.
Activities have been closely watched through satellite imagery since then.
Tunnels can be seen entering the site from different directions. The first test was staged in the eastern tunnel, the second and third in the western tunnel and the remainder in the northern tunnel, according to intelligence authorities.
- Powerful blast -
Tests staged at the site have demonstrated the country's rapid progress in its nuclear programme -- especially since Kim took power in 2011 and oversaw four atomic tests in only six years.
The country's first test was largely seen as a failure and produced an estimated yield of only about one kiloton, compared to as much as 250 kilotons in the sixth -- an explosion 16 times more powerful than the US atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
But Punggye-ri's proximity to China has become a source of concern for Beijing, as the tremor from the sixth test was felt across the border and prompted many residents to flee their homes in panic.
- Collapse claims -
The growing impact of the blasts raised safety concerns, with some Chinese scientists warning that the site could pose a major radioactive threat to the wider region.
A recent study by seismologists at the University of Science and Technology of China suggested rock had collapsed under the Mantap peak, making it unusable.
Kim himself has disputed those claims in conversations with his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-In.
"If they come and see, they will understand that there are two bigger tunnels than the existing test facilities and that they are in a very good condition," Kim said, according to comments released by the South.
- Empty gesture? -
Sceptics have said the move to destroy the site is an empty concession by Kim as the site is already suffering from "tired mountain syndrome" and may be obsolete. Others say North Korea has learned all it needs from the nuclear tests conducted there.
"They already collected the necessary data through six nuclear tests and unless they discard that data, there are suspicions over how significant the dismantling of a nuclear test site that has already run its course is," said Go Myong-Hyun, an analyst at the Asan Institute of Policy Studies.
But Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of Strategic Studies says there is "no basis" to conclude Punggye-ri is no longer usable and the promised closure is "not a case of passing off damaged goods".
- Radiation fears -
The North has long claimed that its nuclear tests posed no environmental threats, saying there was "no radioactive leak" after conducting tests.
But some South Korean and Japanese media reported that workers at the site or residents from the area suffered from radioactive exposure and symptoms including cancer and the births of deformed babies, citing the North's defectors and researchers.
Such concerns prompted Seoul's unification ministry to run medical checkups on 30 defectors who hailed from the region for potential radioactive exposure last year.
Four of them -- from the county of Kilju that includes Punggye-ri -- showed symptoms that could be attributed to radiation exposure, but researchers involved in the study said they could not conclude that the health problems had been caused by a nuclear test.
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Two North Koreans defect to South: Yonhap
Seoul (AFP) May 19, 2018
Two North Koreans defected to the South across the Yellow Sea on Saturday, a South Korean news report said, citing a government source. "A small boat was spotted in waters off the north of Baengnyeong Island" near the inter-Korean border, the source told Yonhap news agency. "They expressed willingness to defect," he said. A Korea Coast Guard official said relevant authorities were investigating the case, declining to give details. One of the men was initially identified as a soldier due ... read more
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