Kim Jong Un signaled he may end a four-year-old freeze on major weapons tests, threatening to ratchet up tensions with the U.S. and force North Korea’s nuclear program back onto the Biden administration’s agenda.
Kim ordered ruling party leaders Wednesday to “promptly examine the issue of restarting all temporarily suspended activities,” state media said, in an apparent reference to the moratorium he started ahead of unprecedented talks with former President Donald Trump. North Korea must reconsider its “trust-building measures” and begin “immediately bolstering more powerful physical means, which can efficiently control the hostile moves of the U.S.,” Kim told the Workers’ Party meeting, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
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While North Korea has fired off sporadic volleys of short-range rockets for more than two years, Kim hasn’t launched an intercontinental ballistic missile since November 2017 or tested a nuclear bomb since September of that year. The lack of tests of weapons that directly threaten the U.S. mainland has made it easier for President Joe Biden to avoid another confrontation with Kim, like when Trump threatened to unleash “fire and fury” against the regime.
The meeting in Pyongyang represents the clearest sign yet that Kim is moving to end his self-imposed isolation after rejecting overtures from the U.S. and South Korea and closing his border with China to prevent coronavirus outbreaks. Forcing a crisis with Washington may be the 38-year-old leader’s best chance to break a diplomatic stalemate that has kept crippling sanctions in place and left the economy smaller than when he took power a decade ago.
South Korean defense stocks rose after the statement, with Victek Co. jumping as much as 9.3% to its highest level since Sept….
Source : time
