North Korea offers to shut nuclear test site in May, invites US experts

SEOUL — North Korea has promised to shut its atomic test site within weeks and invite American weapons experts to verify its closure, Seoul reported on Sunday, as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington had an “obligation” to pursue peace. 

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un — who may meet US President Donald Trump as early as next month — also said Pyongyang would have no need for nuclear weapons if it were promised it would not be invaded, according to Seoul. 

Friday’s historic meeting saw Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agree to pursue the complete denuclearisation of the peninsula.

Washington’s chief diplomat said he and Kim held in-depth talks about a denuclearisation “mechanism” when they met over Easter.

“We talked a great deal about what it might look like, what this complete, verifiable, irreversible mechanism might look like,” Pompeo said.

“We have an obligation to engage in diplomatic discourse to try and find a peaceful solution so that Americans aren’t held at risk by Kim Jong-un and his nuclear arsenal,” Pompeo told ABC, saying there is a “real opportunity” for progress.

He was speaking as the Blue House in Seoul reported Kim told Moon during the summit he would close the North’s nuclear test site in May. 

Kim also said he “would soon invite experts of South Korea and the US as well as journalists to disclose the process to the international community with transparency”, Seoul’s presidential spokesman Yoon Young-chan added.

Tensions spiked last year over the North’s testing of atomic weapons and long-range missiles, including some capable of reaching the US mainland.

“Kim said ‘the US feels repelled by us, but once we talk, they will realise that I am not a person who will fire a nuclear weapon to the South or the US or target the US,’” according to Yoon.

The North Korean leader reportedly added: “If we meet often [with the US], build trust, end the war and eventually are promised no invasion, why would we live with the nuclear weapons?”

Kim also slammed speculation that the North’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site was already unusable after an underground tunnel there reportedly collapsed.

“As they will see once they visit, there are two more tunnels [at the test site] that are even bigger... and they are in good condition,” he was quoted as saying.