Moon Jae-in, the president of South Korea, is pledging to boost cultural exchanges with his country's neighbors to the north.

"I thought of why we are separated, and why we are confronting one another," Moon said Thursday at a luncheon at his office at Cheong Wa Dae, having invited a group of South Korean artists to be thanked for their performances in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, six weeks ago on a two-day tour.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his wife attended that concert along with top officials from North Korea, including Kim's sister and closest aide, Kim Yo Jong.

As important as politics remain "it is the power of culture, art and sports that could drive and tough people's hearts," Moon said.

Red Velvet, a popular South Korean girl band, met with North Korean leadership after their concert there and described Kim as "warm" and their audience as "responsive, clapping a lot" although unfamiliar with most K-pop music.

North Korea and South Korea have been separated since 1953 with very limited exchanges, cultural or otherwise. Many traits originating before the 1950s remained shared, but while much of the art and music in South Korea over the last 65 or so years would be considered global in nature, North Korea embraced a self-sufficient philosophy and produced most of its own.

"We are interested in how much of our culture North Korean people know about," Do Jong-hwan, South Korea's minister of culture, sports and tourism, told ABC News, hinting that plans for plenty of cultural exchanges may already be in the works.

At the inter-Korean summit last month, Kim suggested hosting soccer and basketball games in Pyongyang and in the South Korean capital, Seoul, and sending North Korea's acrobatic circus troupes to the South, Moon recalled on Thursday.

"If these cultural exchanges continue to develop," he added, "people may freely move back and forth between the South and the North, and in the end, we may reach a day when the South and the North will once again become one."

ABC News' Jaesang Lee and Jiweon Park contributed to this report from Seoul, South Korea.</s>North Korea will destroy its nuclear test site later this month, ahead of a summit with the United States, it said Saturday, blowing up its tunnels in front of invited foreign media.

The display at Punggye-ri, in the northwest of the country, will be another step in leader Kim Jong Un’s charm offensive.

Dialogue brokered by Seoul has seen US-North Korea relations go from trading personal insults and threats of war last year to a summit between Kim and President Donald Trump due in Singapore on June 12.

But sceptics warn that Pyongyang has yet to make any public commitment to give up its arsenal, which includes missiles capable of reaching the United States.

Washington is seeking the “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation” of the North.

Punggye-ri has hosted all six of the North’s nuclear tests, the latest and by far the most powerful in September last year, which Pyongyang said was an H-bomb.

Kim has declared the development of the North’s nuclear force complete and that it had no further need for the site.

A ceremony for the dismantling of the facility has been scheduled between May 23-25, Pyongyang’s foreign ministry said, according to the official KCNA news agency.

The tunnels of the test site would be blown up and their entrances completely blocked, the ministry statement said.

All observation facilities and research institutes would be removed, along with guards, it said, “and the surrounding area of the test ground be completely closed”.

Reporters from China, Russia, the United States, Britain and South Korea would be allowed to cover the event on site to show it “in a transparent manner”.

The limit on foreign journalists was due to the “small space of the test ground” which it said was “located in the uninhabited deep mountain area”.

It is the latest move in a rapid sequence of events on the Korean peninsula triggered by the Winter Olympics in the South.

Tensions had been mounting for years as Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes saw it subjected to multiple rounds of increasingly strict sanctions by the UN Security Council, the US, EU, South Korea and others, and Trump last year threatened the North with “fire and fury”.

But since the Pyeongchang Games, Pyongyang and Washington have agreed to the unprecedented Singapore meeting, and Kim has twice visited China to meet President Xi Jinping, after not paying respects in the six years since he inherited power from his father.

Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in affirmed their commitment to the goal of “realising, through complete denuclearisation, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula” at a summit in the Demilitarized Zone that divides their countries last month.

But the phrase is a diplomatic euphemism open to interpretation on both sides.

Pyongyang has long wanted to see an end to the US military presence and nuclear umbrella over the South, but it invaded its neighbour in 1950 and is the only one of the two Koreas to possess nuclear weapons.

This week the North released three Korean-Americans it had detained into the care of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was making his second trip to Pyongyang in two months.

Pompeo Friday promised the US would work to rebuild North Korea’s sanctions-crippled economy if it agreed to surrender its nuclear arsenal.</s>iStock/Thinkstock(SEOUL, South Korea) — Moon Jae-in, the president of South Korea, is pledging to boost cultural exchanges with his country’s neighbors to the north.

“I thought of why we are separated, and why we are confronting one another,” Moon said Thursday at a luncheon at his office at Cheong Wa Dae, having invited a group of South Korean artists to be thanked for their performances in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, six weeks ago on a two-day tour.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his wife attended that concert along with top officials from North Korea, including Kim’s sister and closest aide, Kim Yo Jong.

As important as politics remain, “it is the power of culture, art and sports that could drive and touch people’s hearts,” Moon said.

Red Velvet, a popular South Korean girl band, met with North Korean leadership after their concert there and described Kim as “warm” and their audience as “responsive, clapping a lot” although unfamiliar with most K-pop music.

North Korea and South Korea have been separated since 1953 with very limited exchanges, cultural or otherwise. Many traits originating before the 1950s remained shared, but while much of the art and music in South Korea over the last 65 or so years would be considered global in nature, North Korea embraced a self-sufficient philosophy and produced most of its own.

“We are interested in how much of our culture North Korean people know about,” Do Jong-hwan, South Korea’s minister of culture, sports and tourism, told ABC News, hinting that plans for plenty of cultural exchanges may already be in the works.

At the inter-Korean summit last month, Kim suggested hosting soccer and basketball games in Pyongyang and in the South Korean capital, Seoul, and sending North Korea’s acrobatic circus troupes to the South, Moon said on Thursday.

“If these cultural exchanges continue to develop,” he added, “people may freely move back and forth between the South and the North. And in the end, we may reach a day when the South and the North will once again become one.”</s>SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea welcomes North Korea’s schedule to dismantle its nuclear test site ahead of a historic summit between the North and the United States, the South’s presidential office said on Sunday.

“This shows they are willing to keep their promise made at the inter-Korean summit through action beyond words,” Blue House spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told a media briefing. North and South Korea held a separate summit in late April.

North Korea has scheduled the dismantlement of its nuclear bomb test site for sometime between May 23-25 in order to uphold its pledge to discontinue nuclear tests, the country’s state media reported on Saturday a month ahead of the summit with the United States.</s>U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in North Korea on Wednesday to finalize details of a planned summit between President Donald Trump and North Korea leader Kim Jong Un . A look at recent events in U.S.-North Korea relations: 

 

 Jan. 1, 2017: Kim Jong Un says in a New Year's address that preparations for launching an intercontinental ballistic missile have "reached the final stage." 

 

 Jan. 2: President-elect Donald Trump tweets, "North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S. It won't happen!" 

 

 July 4: North Korea conducts its first flight test of an ICBM, the Hwasong-14, which Kim calls the North's "package of gifts" for the U.S.'s Independence Day. 

 

 July 28: A second Hwasong-14 is launched with an estimated range reaching into the U.S. mainland, including cities such as Chicago. 

 

 Aug. 9: Trump says North Korea had best not make more threats or "they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen." North Korea hours later announces a plan to launch a salvo of missiles toward the U.S. territory of Guam, a major military hub in the Pacific. The North does not carry out on the threat. 

 

 Aug. 29: An intermediate-range North Korean missile flies over Japan and plunges into the northern Pacific. 

 

 Sept. 3: North Korea carries out its sixth and most powerful nuclear test to date, saying it was a hydrogen bomb designed for use on ICBMs. 

 

 Sept. 19: Trump tells the U.N. General Assembly the United States would "totally destroy North Korea" if forced to defend itself or its allies. He refers to Kim as "Rocket Man" and that he's "on a suicide mission for himself." 

 

 Sept. 22: Kim accuses Trump of "mentally deranged behavior." He says he will "surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U. S. dotard with fire." 

 

 Nov. 29: North Korea's third ICBM test demonstrates a potential range that could reach Washington, D.C. 

 

 Jan. 1, 2018: Kim says in his New Year's address that he has a nuclear button on his desk, but also calls for improved relations with South Korea. Trump soon responds that he has a bigger and more powerful nuclear button, "and my Button works!" 

 

 Jan. 9: North and South Korean officials meet in the border village of Panmunjom, and agree on North Korea sending athletes and delegates to the Winter Olympics taking place in the South the following month. 

 

 March 7: A top South Korean official visits Pyongyang and says Kim is willing to discuss the fate of his nuclear arsenal with the United States and has expressed a readiness to suspend nuclear and missile tests during such talks. 

 

 March 9: Trump accepts Kim's invitation to meet, which the White House says will take place by the end of May. 

 

 March 27: Kim makes a surprise visit to Beijing for a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in an apparent move to strengthen his leverage ahead of his negotiations with Trump. 

 

 April 18: Trump confirmed that Pompeo, then the CIA chief, secretly met with Kim in North Korea and said "a good relationship was formed" heading into the adversaries' anticipated summit. 

 

 April 21: North Korea says it has suspended nuclear and long-range missile tests and plans to close its nuclear test site as part of a move to shift its national focus and improve its economy. Trump tweeted, "This is very good news for North Korea and the World" and "big progress!" 

 

 April 27: Kim holds a summit meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. 

 

 May 7: Kim meets Xi again in China's Dailan and calls for stronger "strategic cooperation" between the traditional allies amid shifts in the region's political environment. 

 

 May 9: Pompeo arrives in Pyongyang for meetings ahead of Trump's planned summit with Kim. The Kim-Trump meeting is anticipated for May or June. 

 

 Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>SEOUL, South Korea — President Donald Trump thanked North Korea for saying on Saturday that it would dismantle its nuclear test site between May 23 and 25, in a dramatic event that would set up leader Kim Jong Un’s summit with Trump next month.

“North Korea has announced that they will dismantle Nuclear Test Site this month, ahead of the big Summit Meeting on June 12th. Thank you, a very smart and gracious gesture!” Trump wrote in a tweet Saturday evening.

In a statement carried by state media, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said that all of the tunnels at the country’s northeastern testing ground will be destroyed by explosion, and that observation and research facilities and ground-based guard units will also be removed.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un provides guidance on a nuclear weapons program in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang Sept. 3, 2017.KCNA via Reuters file

Kim had already revealed plans to shut down the test site by the end of May during his summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in last month. Analysts say that while the closure of the site is important, it doesn’t represent a material step toward full denuclearization.

The North plans to invite journalists from the United States, South Korea, China, Russia and Britain to witness the dismantling process, the Foreign Ministry’s statement said.

“A ceremony for dismantling the nuclear test ground is now scheduled between May 23 and 25,” depending on weather conditions, it said.

The journalists from the five selected countries will be provided with a charter flight from Beijing to the North Korean coastal city of Wonsan, from where they will travel by train to the test site, the statement said.

The ministry said the North will continue to “promote close contacts and dialogue with the neighboring countries and the international society so as to safeguard peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and over the globe.”

Following the Moon-Kim summit, Moon’s office said Kim was willing to disclose the process to international experts, but the North’s statement Saturday didn’t include any mention about allowing experts on the site.

South Korea had no immediate response to the statement.

The North’s announcement comes days after Washington announced that the historic summit between Kim and Trump will be held June 12 in Singapore.

Seoul, which shuttled between Washington and Pyongyang to set up the Trump-Kim meeting, has said Kim has genuine interest in dealing away his nuclear weapons in return for economic benefits. However, there are lingering doubts about whether Kim would ever agree to fully relinquish the weapons he likely views as his only guarantee of survival.

During their summit at a border truce village, Moon and Kim vaguely promised to work toward the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula, but made no references to verification or timetables.

Excavation continued underground on Oct. 19, 2016 in the North Portal area at the Punggye-Ri Nuclear Test Site, suggesting more tests to come in the same tunnel complex directly under Mt. Mantap.DigitalGlobe / 38 North via Getty Images

North Korea for decades has been pushing a concept of “denuclearization” that bears no resemblance to the American definition. The North has been vowing to pursue nuclear development unless Washington removes its 28,500 troops from South Korea and the nuclear umbrella defending South Korea and Japan.

Some experts believe Kim may try to drag out the process to wait out the Trump administration or seek a deal in which he gives away his intercontinental ballistic missiles but retains some of his shorter-range arsenal in return for a reduced U.S. military presence in the South. This could satisfy Trump but undermine the alliance between Washington and Seoul.

Kim declared his nuclear force as complete in December, following North Korea’s most powerful nuclear test to date in September and three flight tests of ICBMs designed to reach the U.S. mainland.

North Korea announced at a ruling party meeting last month that it was suspending all tests of nuclear devices and ICBMs, as well as the plan to close the nuclear testing ground.

Kim said during the meeting that the nuclear test site’s mission had come “to an end” because the North had completed the process of developing nuclear-capable intermediate-range missiles, ICBMs and other strike means.

The North also said for the first time at the meeting that it had been conducting “subcritical” nuclear tests. These refer to experiments involving a subcritical mass of nuclear materials that allow scientists to examine the performance and safety of weapons without triggering a nuclear chain reaction and explosion.

North Korea’s reference to such activity is designed to communicate that even without underground testing, the country intends to maintain its nuclear arsenal and be a “responsible” steward of those weapons at the same time, said Andrea Berger, a senior analyst at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

Still, the closure of the underground testing site could be a useful precedent for Washington and Seoul as they proceed with the nuclear negotiations with Pyongyang, analysts say.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, and South Korean President Moon Jae-in pose for photographs after signing a declaration on April 27 in the border village of Panmunjom.Pool / Getty Images

“Now that North Korea has accepted in principle that agreements should be verified, U.S. negotiators should hold them to this standard for any subsequent agreement,” said Adam Mount, a senior defense analyst at the Federation of American Scientists. “It will make it more difficult for Kim Jong Un to deny inspections now that he has placed them on the table.”

North Korea has invited the outside world to witness the dismantling of its nuclear facilities before. In June 2008, international broadcasters were allowed to air the demolishing of a cooling tower at the Nyongbyon reactor site, a year after the North reached an agreement with the U.S. and four other nations to disable its nuclear facilities in return for an aid package worth about $400 million.

But in September 2008, the North declared that it would resume reprocessing plutonium, complaining that Washington wasn’t fulfilling its promise to remove the country from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The administration of George W. Bush removed North Korea from the list in October 2008 after the country agreed to continue disabling its nuclear plant. However, a final attempt by Bush to complete an agreement to fully dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons program collapsed that December when the North refused to accept U.S.-proposed verification methods.

The North went on to conduct its second nuclear test in May 2009.</s>Kim Jong-un walks with President Moon Jae-in in the Joint Security Area between North and South Korea on April 27, 2018 (Ministry of Unification, Republic of Korea, Korean Open Government License 1)

Can the Catholic Church Help Two Korean States Reconcile?

The 234-year-long history of Catholicism in Korea provides remarkable examples and paths to dialogue.

On April 27, 2018, history was made. Borders and walls separating the Korean nation were torn down. Kim Jong-un stepped over the concrete block marking the border to become North Korea’s first leader to set foot in the South. He invited South Korean President Moon Jae-in to cross the border and walk in North Korea, which in fact is the land of his ancestors — Moon Jae-in’s parents were among the 14,000 refugees who left North Korea from the port at Hungnam, the site of a major evacuation of United Nations military, South Korean military and North Korean civilians during the Korean War between Dec. 15-24, 1950. The evacuation went down in history as a “Christmas Miracle.” The April 2018 meeting was more than picture-perfect: the Korean leaders agreed to pursue a peace treaty and complete denuclearization of the peninsula. The swift action of denuclearization left the world in awe, believing that miracles can indeed happen — and, speaking of miracles, is this another “Easter Miracle?”

While witnessing history-in-the-making in Korea, I could not help but think of a documentary film I saw almost a year ago entitled Under the Sun. The documentary follows a year in the life of a three-member family in capital Pyongyang, in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), or North Korea. I would recommend this documentary to anyone with a keen desire to read between the lines and understand the real North Korea, often described as the “Hermit Kingdom,” camouflaged under the idyllic perfectness and well-being only a Communist regime could provide to its citizens. The main character, Zin-Mi, the 8-year-old Korean girl, knows a great deal about her homeland. North Korea, she says, is “the land of the rising sun” and “the most beautiful country” on earth, although North Korea was the only place an 8-year-old had ever seen, and probably the only place she would be able to see, given Communist travel restrictions and isolation policies. The documentary, which was filmed under strict government surveillance, chronicles Zin-Mi's preparations to become a member of the Children's Union, an organization in the tradition of the Pioneers of the USSR and other Socialist-bloc countries. The observant viewer can witness how people living under Communism were starving, and how the country was mired in poverty, isolation and economic destruction.

Moreover, the DPRK presented in the documentary is a nation-state that seems to exist in a constant state of paranoia about domestic, South Korean and global enemies, including the United States, which was considered the bastion of “evil imperialism.” Domestic enemies were purged for treason, espionage and counterrevolutionary activities, and labor camps for political prisoners were mushrooming in the DPRK.

North Korea effectively isolated itself from the outside world after Kim Il-sung took control, after World War II. The state became seen as largely a Soviet satellite, blessed by Stalin; while in the Cold War era Pyongyang and Moscow appeared close, a longer lasting and in many ways more influential relationship has existed and continued to develop between Pyongyang and Beijing. Currently, the North Korean economy is the only unreformed Stalinist-style command economy left in existence, while most others have crumbled or have started ambitious reforms.

The first border-passing between the two Korean states really happened on April 27, 2018. Can the Catholic Church in Korea contribute to reconciling the two Koreas, and can the Catholic Church in South Korea help spread the Gospel to North Korea?

The answer is yes. The 234-year-long history of Catholicism in Korea provides remarkable examples and paths to dialogue. Catholicism reached the Korean Peninsula in 1784 via lay people, not via foreign missionaries. This has left the Catholic Church in Korea a permanent mark of pastoral vitality, which over the centuries has strengthened the relations between clergy and laity. During the 35-year Japanese rule in Korea (1910-1945), the influence of the Catholic Church in Korea was significantly diminished. However, after the Japanese colonial rule ended, the Catholic Church’s influence among the Korean people increased. According to the most recent statistics Catholics make up 7.9% of the population of South Korea. Although a small minority in comparison to Protestantism 19.7%, Buddhism 15.5% and people of no religious affiliation 56.9%, the Catholic Church constitutes an influential minority: a constant, firm voice and witness to the social Gospel. The Church’s message has been in the service of the people and justice, and in opposition to any form of dictatorship and oppression.

Dialogue and policy reconciliation between the North and South Korean states started in 1989, the year that marked the fall of the Berlin Wall. But dialogue is a process and cannot happen overnight.

During the time of President Roh Tae Woo (1988-1993), South Korea developed Nordpolitic — a foreign policy aimed at developing diplomatic relations with the liberated Socialist-bloc countries of Eastern Europe. Part of the policy was also developing contacts and relations with the DPRK. This political approach resulted in the Korean states joining the United Nations, and in December 1991 both Koreas signed an agreement on reconciliation. This was followed by Korean religious leaders’ delegations meeting for the first time in Nepal in 1991 during the Asian Conference on Religion and Peace. In 1992 North Korea revised its constitution to guarantee religious freedom and the right to construct religious buildings in North Korea. This favorable situation of dialogue and reconciliation was short-lived. Korea’s first nuclear crisis in 1992 resulted in a standstill in the progress of relations between the North and South Korea. Despite the slowdown, relations changed focus, and South Korea focused on providing aid in food and medicine to DPRK. The period following the 2007 Inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang, between President Roh Moo-hyun of the Republic of Korea and Kim Jong-il of the DPRK, witnessed increased relations between the North and South, resulting in South Korean religious leaders visiting DPRK. It was during this time that the Catholic Church in South Korea, through its institutions including Caritas and the Catholic Committee for Korean Reconciliation, developed several aid projects for the North.

The South Korean Catholic position has been cautious over the years, seeking to avoid any provocations toward the North. In December 2011, the Catholic Church in South Korea did not support a project promoted by Protestant churches to erect a Christmas tree along the border with North Korea. The policy of non-confrontation and non-provocation followed by the Catholic Church in the South goes hand in hand with what Archbishop of Seoul, Yeom Soo-Jung, declared in May 2012: that the first step toward improving the situation between the two Korean states is to “restore mutual trust,” which, in turn, will develop mutual dialogue and peace.

Reconciliation and peace building between the two Korean states is a long process but past relations, as explained above, give hope for deeper dialogue and reconciliation to come. In August 2014 during his Apostolic Journey in the Republic of Korea, Pope Francis reflected on the same topic of dialogue and peace building, saying, “Let us pray, then, for the emergence of new opportunities for dialogue, encounter and the resolution of differences, for continued generosity in providing humanitarian assistance to those in need, and for an ever-greater recognition that all Koreans are brothers and sisters, members of one family, one people. They speak the same language.”

Indeed, the two Korean states are members of the same Korean family, and they share the same mother language, traditions and culture, and the same national martyrs. In April 2013, the Korean Catholic Episcopal Conference launched a process for the beatification of Korean Catholics who died in North Korea, including the Bishop Hong Yongho of Pyongyang, who was killed in 1949. It is proven: martyrs unite and reconcile. In sum, Koreans have the human resources for dialogue and peace building now that the barriers were shattered and promises of denuclearization made. They have the potential to become peace builders in North-Eastern Asia and continue the Easter Miracle.</s>The article you have been looking for has expired and is not longer available on our system. This is due to newswire licensing terms.</s>North Korea will destroy its nuclear test site later this month, ahead of a summit with the United States, it said Saturday, pledging to blow up its tunnels in front of invited foreign media.

US President Donald Trump praised the North’s decision to dismantle the Punggye-ri test site in a ceremony scheduled between May 23-25, the latest step in leader Kim Jong Un’s charm offensive.

Dialogue brokered by Seoul has seen US-North Korea relations go from trading personal insults and threats of war last year to a summit between Kim and Trump due in Singapore on June 12.

But sceptics warn that Pyongyang has yet to make any public commitment to give up its arsenal, which includes missiles capable of reaching the United States.

Washington is seeking the “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation” of the North and stresses that verification will be key.

Punggye-ri, in the northeast of the country, has hosted all six of the North’s nuclear tests, the latest and by far the most powerful in September last year, which Pyongyang said was an H-bomb.

Kim has declared the development of the North’s nuclear force complete and that it had no further need for the site.

The latest measures will see the tunnels of the test site blown up and their entrances completely blocked, Pyongyang’s foreign ministry said, according to the official KCNA news agency.

All observation facilities and research institutes would be removed, along with guards, it said, “and the surrounding area of the test ground be completely closed”.

Reporters from China, Russia, the United States, Britain and South Korea would be allowed to cover the event on site to show it “in a transparent manner”.

Limits on foreign journalists were due to space constraints, it said, as the site was in an “uninhabited deep mountain area”.

South Korea welcomed the announcement, which signalled the North’s willingness to carry out its pledges “not just in words but in action”.

“We hope the sound of the dynamite blowing up the tunnels at Punggye-ri will be the first salute in our journey towards a nuclear-free Korean peninsula,” the South’s presidential spokesman said.

Analysts said the move was positive but limited in its scope.

It was “not bad, but a cost-free signal”, tweeted MIT political science professor Vipin Narang.

Given the stage it had already reached, Pyongyang “may feel like they don’t need to test anything for a while”, he said.

Jeffrey Lewis, of the Middlebury Institute for International Studies, expected that the North “will sanitise the site before letting anyone see it”.

Saturday’s announcement is the latest move in a rapid sequence of events on the Korean peninsula triggered by the Winter Olympics in the South.

Tensions had been mounting for years as Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes saw it subjected to multiple rounds of increasingly strict sanctions by the UN Security Council, the US, EU, South Korea and others, and Trump last year threatened the North with “fire and fury”.

But since the Pyeongchang Games, Pyongyang and Washington have agreed to the unprecedented Singapore meeting, and Kim has twice visited China to meet President Xi Jinping, after not paying respects in the six years since he inherited power from his father.

The head of the UN’s World Food Programme said Saturday it appeared North Korea was “turning a new page in history”, following a four-day visit to the country.

David Beasley said he had enjoyed unprecedented access to the secretive state, telling BBC radio that North Korea’s leaders had a “sense of optimism”.

Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in last month affirmed their commitment to the goal of “realising, through complete denuclearisation, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula” at a summit in the Demilitarized Zone that divides their countries.

But the phrase is a diplomatic euphemism open to interpretation on both sides.

Pyongyang has long wanted to see an end to the US military presence in — and nuclear umbrella over — the South, but it invaded its neighbour in 1950 and is the only one of the two Koreas to possess nuclear weapons.

This week the North released three Korean-Americans it had detained into the care of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was making his second trip to Pyongyang in two months.

However, Trump also withdrew the United States from a nuclear pact with Iran, raising questions over whether Pyongyang would trust Washington’s promises.

Pompeo Friday promised the US would work to rebuild North Korea’s sanctions-hit economy if it agreed to surrender its nuclear arsenal.</s>North Korea will destroy its nuclear test site later this month, ahead of a summit with the United States, it said Saturday, pledging to blow up its tunnels in front of invited foreign media.

The display at Punggye-ri, in the northeast of the country, will be another step in leader Kim Jong Un’s charm offensive, with a ceremony scheduled between May 23-25.

Dialogue brokered by Seoul has seen US-North Korea relations go from trading personal insults and threats of war last year to a summit between Kim and President Donald Trump due in Singapore on June 12.

But sceptics warn that Pyongyang has yet to make any public commitment to give up its arsenal, which includes missiles capable of reaching the United States.

Washington is seeking the “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation” of the North and stresses that verification will be key.

Punggye-ri has hosted all six of the North’s nuclear tests, the latest and by far the most powerful in September last year, which Pyongyang said was an H-bomb.

Kim has declared the development of the North’s nuclear force complete and that it had no further need for the site.

The latest measures will see the tunnels of the test site blown up and their entrances completely blocked, Pyongyang’s foreign ministry said, according to the official KCNA news agency.

All observation facilities and research institutes would be removed, along with guards, it said, “and the surrounding area of the test ground be completely closed”.

Reporters from China, Russia, the United States, Britain and South Korea would be allowed to cover the event on site to show it “in a transparent manner”.

Limits on foreign journalists were due to space constraints, it said, as the site was in an “uninhabited deep mountain area”.

Analysts said the move was positive but limited in its scope.

It was “not bad, but a cost-free signal”, tweeted MIT political science professor Vipin Narang.

Given the stage it had already reached, Pyongyang “may feel like they don’t need to test anything for a while”, he said.

Jeffrey Lewis, of the Middlebury Institute for International Studies, expected that the North “will sanitise the site before letting anyone see it”.

Saturday’s announcement is the latest move in a rapid sequence of events on the Korean peninsula triggered by the Winter Olympics in the South.

Tensions had been mounting for years as Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes saw it subjected to multiple rounds of increasingly strict sanctions by the UN Security Council, the US, EU, South Korea and others, and Trump last year threatened the North with “fire and fury”.

But since the Pyeongchang Games, Pyongyang and Washington have agreed to the unprecedented Singapore meeting, and Kim has twice visited China to meet President Xi Jinping, after not paying respects in the six years since he inherited power from his father.

The head of the UN’s World Food Programme said Saturday it appeared North Korea was “turning a new page in history”, following a four-day visit to the country.

David Beasley said he had enjoyed unprecedented access to the secretive state, telling BBC radio that North Korea’s leaders had a “sense of optimism”.

Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in last month affirmed their commitment to the goal of “realising, through complete denuclearisation, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula” at a summit in the Demilitarized Zone that divides their countries.

But the phrase is a diplomatic euphemism open to interpretation on both sides.

Pyongyang has long wanted to see an end to the US military presence in and nuclear umbrella over the South, but it invaded its neighbour in 1950 and is the only one of the two Koreas to possess nuclear weapons.

This week the North released three Korean-Americans it had detained into the care of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was making his second trip to Pyongyang in two months.

Trump also withdrew the United States from a nuclear pact with Iran, raising questions over whether Pyongyang would trust Washington’s promises.

Pompeo Friday promised the US would work to rebuild North Korea’s sanctions-hit economy if it agreed to surrender its nuclear arsenal.
After Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe insisted North Korea settle the issue of Japanese citizens adbucted by North Korea, North Korean state media KCNA accuses Japan of disrupting peace efforts before the planned North Korea–U.S. summit.