North Korea dismantles major nuclear site at Punggye-ri
The Punggye-ri nuclear site in North Korea has been completely dismantled, claim multiple media reports. On Thursday, North Korea's nuclear weapons institute said Pyongyang wanted to build a nuclear-free world. Saying the site is being evacuated by the staff, the institute said it was impossible to conduct nuclear tests there. Many media professionals were invited to see the closing of the nuclear site.
The site located near the village of Punggye-ri in the northeast area of the country has been the center of all six nuclear tests the country conducted during 2006-2017. In terms of strength, the hydrogen bomb North Korea tested in September last year was suggested to be 10 times more powerful than the nuclear bombs the United States dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Keeping up with its promise of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, the North is reported to have blown up all tunnels used for nuclear testing. Journalists reported they had to trek for an hour to reach the site. Asked about Iran and Syria's cooperation in these matters, a senior official said, "We have never cooperated with these countries on this issue."
North Korea went ahead with the dismantling of sites despite threatening to pull out of an unprecedented summit with US President Donald Trump. On Tuesday, Trump told reporters the historic meeting with Kim Jong-un might not happen after all. "I don't want to waste a lot of time, and I'm sure he doesn't want to waste a lot of time," he said.
At a historic summit meeting in April, the heads of North and South Korea agreed to denuclearize the Korean peninsula and lead negotiations with the US to officially declare an end to the Korean War. Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in also vowed to turn the Korean War armistice into a peace treaty, a move marking the end of a shared bloodied past.
