The South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo highlighted a report on Friday indicating that North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site, which it dramatically claimed to have been blown up as a gesture of goodwill, may still be able to function with minimal repairs.
Reports began surfacing late Thursday and Friday from North Korea’s Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site, where the government invited reporters to witness the destruction of buildings outside the facility’s three tunnels and what Pyongyang claimed was the total destruction of the tunnels used for weapons testing themselves.
North Korea conducted its demolition media event at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site on Thursday, setting off what observers described as a series of explosions that raised a plume of dust and smoke over nearby Mount Mantap. The event was intended to demonstrate Pyongyang’s commitment to denuclearization, but it only reinforced the skepticism of analysts around the world that dictator Kim Jong-un is more interested in destroying the evidence of past illegal nuclear activities. They also doubted the Punggye-ri site will be fully or permanently decommissioned.
Even as journalists trudge toward North Korea’s much-touted decommissioning of the nuclear weapons test site at Punggye-ri, nuclear weapons experts are worried the regime is using the media event to bank unearned international credibility while it destroys evidence of its illicit weapons research.
North Korea reportedly charged international reporters $10,000 each for flight visas to cover the shutdown of the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site, scheduled to occur sometime between May 23 and 25
The latest signal that North Korea’s “diplomatic thaw” could be freezing over again came on Friday, when the Communist state “declined to accept” a list of South Korean journalists who wanted to observe the much-ballyhooed shutdown of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site next week.
An analysis of commercial satellite imagery by 38 North suggests that North Korea has begun the process of dismantling its nuclear test facility at Punggye-ri. North Korea has scheduled a formal decommissioning event and media opportunity for next week.
North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Saturday that the communist regime would hold a ceremony on a date between May 23 and 25 to permanently shut down the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site, and journalists from five countries, including the United States, were invited to attend.
