United Nations/Washington: North Korea is working to ensure its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities cannot be destroyed by military strikes, UN monitors said ahead of a meeting between US and North Korean officials to prepare a second denuclearisation summit.
The US special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, will meet his North Korean counterpart Wednesday in Pyongyang to prepare for a summit later this month between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the US State Department said Monday.
Biegun has said he hoped the meeting with new North Korean counterpart Kim Hyok Chol would map out “a set of concrete deliverables” for the summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un.
Biegun, who held talks with South Korean officials in Seoul Sunday and Monday, said he would be aiming for “a roadmap of negotiations and declarations going forward and a shared understanding of the desired outcomes of our joint efforts.”
South Korean officials said they and the United States could be looking at a compromise that could expedite North Korea’s denuclearisation – the dismantling of the North’s main Yongbyon nuclear complex, which could be reciprocated by US measures including formally ending the 1950-53 Korean War and setting up a liaison office.
But UN sanctions monitors said in a confidential report, submitted to a 15-member UN Security Council sanctions committee and seen by Reuters Monday, that they had “found evidence of a consistent trend on the part of the DPRK to disperse its assembly, storage and testing locations”, using the abbreviation for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The North Korean mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report, which was submitted to Security Council members Friday.
‘SANCTIONS INEFFECTIVE’
North Korea has complained the United States has done little to reciprocate its freezing of nuclear and missile testing and dismantling of some nuclear facilities. It has also repeatedly urged a lifting of punishing US-led sanctions, a formal end to the war, and security guarantees. The UN report said sanctions were proving ineffective. “The country continues to defy Security Council resolutions through a massive increase in illegal ship-to-ship transfers of petroleum products and coal,” the sanctions monitors found. “These violations render the latest UN sanctions ineffective.” The monitors said they had evidence of one unprecedented prohibited petroleum product transfer of more than 57,600 barrels, worth more than $5.7 million. North Korea has said it will never unilaterally give up its nuclear weapons unless the United States first removes any threat to it. North Korea has long demanded US troops be withdrawn as a condition for peace.