North Korea said Saturday that it will dismantle its nuclear test site in less than two weeks, in a dramatic event that would set up leader Kim Jong Un's summit with President Donald Trump next month.

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.

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.

"A ceremony for dismantling the nuclear test ground is now scheduled between May 23 and 25," depending on weather conditions, the Foreign Ministry's statement said.

It said the North will invite journalists from the United States, South Korea, China, Russia and Britain to witness the dismantling process.

The journalists 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.

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.

"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>During Pompeo's visit to North Korea, he promised Kim economic help from the U.S. to bolster his country's economy.

Pompeo’s surprise visit to North Korea appeared to be fruitful, as he returned with three Americans who had been held in North Korean labor camps. Additionally, Pompeo noted that his talks with Kim Jong Un were “warm” and “constructive,” as he promised the leader U.S. economic help if North Korea indeed denuclearizes the peninsula.

As the Trump-Kim summit nears, there are several concerns. One, people wonder if North Korea’s definition of denuclearization is the same as the United States’. Secondly, some predict that Kim will demand that U.S. troops withdraw from South Korea.

Mike Pence said, “What Kim Jong Un has said publicly and in discussions is that he is prepared, he is prepared to negotiate to achieve complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.” Pompeo said that the denuclearization would need to be verified and permanent in order for it to be considered complete, reported The Hill.

The topic of South Korean troops may come up in the summit, although experts advise that it should not. For 65 years, the United States has kept a strong military presence in South Korea, which is believed to have helped keep the peace between the North and South, detailed CBS News. The discussion of whether the troops should leave or not is advised to take place only between the president of South Korea and Trump.

The allure of economic help could be enough for Kim to accept terms to denuclearize, as Pompeo said that there’s a chance that North Korea and the U.S. could become “partners,” according to the Los Angeles Times. This could be a significant change to the current state of relations between the two countries. For about 70 years since the Korean War, the U.S. and North Korea have been hostile to one another. Most recently, the U.S. posed sanctions on North Korea when Kim refused to stop testing his nuclear weapons.

An example of a country that accepted U.S. economic help is Japan after World War II, which was able to recover after losing the war. Currently, South Korea is doing much better economically than North Korea, and Pompeo pointed out that with help from the U.S., Kim could see his country flourish and do well like his southern neighbors.

The Trump-Kim summit is scheduled to take place on June 12 in Singapore. The details of denuclearization will be discussed then between the two leaders.</s>(AP Photo/Alex Brandon). South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha, left, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrive for a media availability at the State Department, Friday, May 11, 2018 in Washington.

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon). Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, right, speaks during a media availability with South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha at the State Department, Friday, May 11, 2018 in Washington.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States aspires to have North Korea as a "close partner" and not an enemy, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, noting that the U.S. has often in history become good friends with former adversaries.

Pompeo said he had told North Korean leader Kim Jong Un of that hope during his brief visit to Pyongyang earlier this week, during which he finalized details of the June 12 summit between Kim and President Donald Trump and secured the release of three Americans imprisoned in the country.

He said his talks with Kim on Wednesday had been "warm," ''constructive" and "good" and that he made clear that if North Korea gets rid of its nuclear weapons in a permanent and verifiable way, the U.S. is willing to help the impoverished nation boost its economy and living stands to levels like those in prosperous South Korea.

"We had good conversations about the histories of our two nations, the challenges that we have had between us," Pompeo told reporters at a news conference Friday with South Korea's visiting foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha. "We talked about the fact that America has often in history had adversaries who we are now close partners with and our hope that we could achieve the same with respect to North Korea."

He did not mention other adversaries by name, but Pompeo and others have often noted that the U.S. played a major role in rebuilding Japan and the European axis powers in the wake of World War II. With U.S. help, those countries recovered from the devastation of conflict.

"If North Korea takes bold action to quickly denuclearize, the United States is prepared to work with North Korea to achieve prosperity on the par with our South Korean friends," he said.

Kang praised the upcoming meeting between Trump and Kim in Singapore as an "historic" opportunity, but added a few notes of skepticism as well. Amid concerns that North Korea will demand the U.S. withdraw its troops from neighboring South Korea, Kang emphasized that the U.S. military presence there must be "a matter for the U.S.-ROK alliance first and foremost," using an acronym for South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea.

She said the U.S. troop presence in the South for the past 65 years has played a "crucial role for deterrence," peace and stability on the Korean peninsula. Therefore, she said, any change in the size of the U.S. forces in South Korea should not be on the table at the summit.

"The next few weeks will be critical, requiring air-tight coordination between our two countries," Kang said, noting that South Korean President Moon Jae-in would be in Washington to see Trump later this month.

Since Trump announced plans to hold a summit with Kim, questions have been raised continually about whether the two leaders have the same objective in mind when they speak about "denuclearization." To the U.S., that means the North giving up the nuclear weapons it has already built. But North Korea has said it's willing to talk now because it's already succeeded in becoming a nuclear-armed state, fueling skepticism that the North would truly be willing to give those weapons up.

Pompeo said there would need to be "complete" and "verifiable" denuclearization that would remove North Korea as a threat to the South, the United States and the rest of the world. He said a major inspection and monitoring regime would be required to ensure the North's compliance.

"I think there is complete agreement about what the ultimate objectives are," Pompeo said, though he declined to offer more detail.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>The United States aspires to have North Korea as a "close partner" and not an enemy, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, noting that the U.S. has often in history become good friends with former adversaries. 

 

 Pompeo said he had told North Korean leader Kim Jong Un of that hope during his brief visit to Pyongyang earlier this week, during which he finalized details of the June 12 summit between Kim and President Donald Trump and secured the release of three Americans imprisoned in the country. 

 

 He said his talks with Kim on Wednesday had been "warm," ''constructive" and "good" and that he made clear that if North Korea gets rid of its nuclear weapons in a permanent and verifiable way, the U.S. is willing to help the impoverished nation boost its economy and living stands to levels like those in prosperous South Korea. 

 

 "We had good conversations about the histories of our two nations, the challenges that we have had between us," Pompeo told reporters at a news conference Friday with South Korea's visiting foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha. "We talked about the fact that America has often in history had adversaries who we are now close partners with and our hope that we could achieve the same with respect to North Korea." 

 

 He did not mention other adversaries by name, but Pompeo and others have often noted that the U.S. played a major role in rebuilding Japan and the European axis powers in the wake of World War II. With U.S. help, those countries recovered from the devastation of conflict. 

 

 "If North Korea takes bold action to quickly denuclearize, the United States is prepared to work with North Korea to achieve prosperity on the par with our South Korean friends," he said. 

 

 Kang praised the upcoming meeting between Trump and Kim in Singapore as an "historic" opportunity, but added a few notes of skepticism as well. Amid concerns that North Korea will demand the U.S. withdraw its troops from neighboring South Korea, Kang emphasized that the U.S. military presence there must be "a matter for the U.S.-ROK alliance first and foremost," using an acronym for South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea. 

 

 She said the U.S. troop presence in the South for the past 65 years has played a "crucial role for deterrence," peace and stability on the Korean peninsula. Therefore, she said, any change in the size of the U.S. forces in South Korea should not be on the table at the summit. 

 

 "The next few weeks will be critical, requiring air-tight coordination between our two countries," Kang said, noting that South Korean President Moon Jae-in would be in Washington to see Trump later this month. 

 

 Since Trump announced plans to hold a summit with Kim, questions have been raised continually about whether the two leaders have the same objective in mind when they speak about "denuclearization." To the U.S., that means the North giving up the nuclear weapons it has already built. But North Korea has said it's willing to talk now because it's already succeeded in becoming a nuclear-armed state, fueling skepticism that the North would truly be willing to give those weapons up. 

 

 Pompeo said there would need to be "complete" and "verifiable" denuclearization that would remove North Korea as a threat to the South, the United States and the rest of the world. He said a major inspection and monitoring regime would be required to ensure the North's compliance. 

 

 "I think there is complete agreement about what the ultimate objectives are," Pompeo said, though he declined to offer more detail. 

 

 Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>North Korea will dismantle its nuclear test site at Punggye-ri between May 23 and 25, North Korean state-run media reported.

In the early weeks following news reports in the West that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un had agreed to denuclearization and would hold direct talks with U.S. President Donald Trump, the official media in Pyongyang was silent on the historic development.

Rodong Sinmun, the North’s main newspaper, carried the full text of a statement North Korea’s Foreign Ministry had released on May 12 saying the nuclear site would be demolished.

Related: Reports suggest collapse of N. Korea’s nuclear test mountain is factor in new line, May 1, 2018

The Korean Central Broadcasting Station, a radio station for the domestic audience, also reported on the ministry’s announcement.

The Korean Central Television Station also showed a newscaster reading the statement on May 12.

“These reports appear to be designed to show not only to the international community but also to the people at home that the regime in Pyongyang is serious about its denuclearization commitment,” Yonhap said in a May 13 report.

The North’s state media outlets also carried reports on U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Pyongyang and his meeting with Kim Jong-Un, saying the two sides had in-depth discussions on issues related to the upcoming summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trump and Kim are scheduled to hold a summit in Singapore on June 12.

“Ahead of the summit with the U.S., the North appears to be trying to promote its credibility through actively letting not only the international community but also North Korean people know of the plan to dismantle the nuclear test site,” said Kim Yong-hyu, a professor at Seoul’s Dongguk University.

Login To Your FaceBook to Make Comments</s>As North Korea prepares for leader Kim Jong Un’s summit with President Donald Trump in June, it announced Saturday that it will conclude its efforts to dismantle a nuclear test site with a public ceremony later this month.

Journalists from the United States, South Korea, China, Russia and Britain will be invited to watch, according to The Associated Press.

Journalists are being invited to “show in a transparent manner the dismantlement of the northern nuclear test ground to be carried out,” Reuters reported North Korea’s official news agency as saying.

To allow the reporters in, North Korea will open up its highly restricted air space.

During the event, all tunnels will be destroyed by explosions. All observation and research facilities and ground-based guard units will also be removed, the news agency said.

The event is set to take place between May 23 and May 25, depending upon the weather.

All of North Korea’s nuclear tests have taken place in Punggye-ri, where tunnels were dug under Mount Mantap. Since September, experts have theorized that the test site has been so badly damaged by the tests that it is no longer usable. In April, North Korea announced it would no longer be conducting nuclear tests.

Researchers said this week that space-based radar showed the site was extensively damaged and that major portions have collapsed, The Wall Street Journal reported.

“This means that a very large domain has collapsed around the test site, not merely a tunnel or two,” said Sylvain Barbot, an assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and one author of a new study of the site.

Another expert said that whether the move to dismantle the nuclear test site in a public ceremony is propaganda or not, it is good news.

“At the very least, this is a welcome PR move,” Jeffrey Lewis, head of the East Asia program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California, told The Washington Post.

Lewis said North Korea has already been working to dismantle the site.

“Over the past two weeks, five or six buildings have inexplicably come down,” he said. “Something is clearly happening there.”

RELATED: Trump: Pompeo on His Way Back from North Korea with 3 Released Prisoners

On Friday, following conversations with Kim that took place on Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the regime’s efforts to stop its nuclear program could be a first step to a better relationship between the United States and North Korea.

“We had good conversations about the histories of our two nations, the challenges that we have had between us,” Pompeo told reporters, according to CBS News. “We talked about the fact that America has often in history had adversaries who we are now close partners with and our hope that we could achieve the same with respect to North Korea.”

Pompeo said that the U.S. will help North Korea if it ends efforts to build nuclear weapons.

“If North Korea takes bold action to quickly denuclearize, the United States is prepared to work with North Korea to achieve prosperity on the par with our South Korean friends,” he said.

What do you think? Scroll down to comment below.</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.

“Thank you, a very smart and gracious gesture!” Trump tweeted.

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 has said it will hold a "ceremony" for the dismantling of its nuclear test site from May 23-25.

The move would be a dramatic but symbolic event to set up leader Kim Jong-un's summit with US President Donald Trump next month.

North Korea's Foreign Ministry said all of the tunnels at the country's north-eastern testing ground will be destroyed by explosion.

Observation and research facilities and ground-based guard units will also be removed.

The North said it plans to invite journalists from the United States, South Korea, China, Russia and Britain to inspect the process.

Kim had revealed plans to shut down the nuclear test site during his summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in last month.

On Thursday it was announced that Kim and President Trump would meet in Singapore on June 12.

It follows a period of improved relations between the USA and North Korea.

Until recently, the two leaders were trading personal insults, with Mr Trump vowing to "completely destroy" North Korea in the face of nuclear threat.

Pyongyang appeared to have made major advances in its quest to develop nuclear weapons, claiming that it possessed missiles capable of hitting mainland US.

But seemingly out of the blue, relations seem to have improved between the US and North Korea, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo having made two visits to Pyongyang in a matter of weeks.
• US offers to help rebuild North Korean economy
• Trump thanks Kim as US prisoners return from North Korea
• Who are the three Americans freed from North Korean detention?</s>North Korea has announced that it will dismantle its nuclear test site. According to the Associated Press, North Korea's Foreign Ministry delivered a statement delivered through state media Saturday announcing the dismantling will occur between May 23 and 25.

Reuters reports that Punggye-ri nuclear test site has been the location of all of North Korea's six known nuclear tests. At the site, there's a system of tunnels under the mountain Mount Mantap. Journalists from the United States, South Korea, China, Russia and Britain will be invited to watch a special ceremony in which all of the tunnels at the testing ground will be destroyed and observation and research facilities and guard units will be taken down.

The North Korean government will provide journalists with a charter flight from Beijing to Wonsan, North Korea. From there, a train will take them to the test site in the northeast part of the country.

The Associated Press reports that plans to dismantle the site are not new: During his summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in April, Kim announced that he would shut it down by the end of May.

In their joint statement released after the summit, Moon and Kim declared that there would be "no more war" on the Korean Peninsula and committed to a goal of "complete denuclearization."

After the summit, Park Hyeong Jung, a senior research fellow at the government-funded Korea Institute of National Unification, told NPR's Anthony Kuhn he was not sure Kim would completely abandon nuclear weapons:

The AP also reports that at a ruling party meeting last month, North Korea announced the plan to close the nuclear testing ground, along with a commitment to suspend all tests of nuclear devices and ICBMs. At that same meeting, however, North Korea said it has been performing a kind of nuclear test classified as "subcritical." The "subcritical" experiments give scientists an opportunity to test weapons without causing an actual nuclear chain reaction and explosion.

Hours after North Korea announced plans for the dismantling ceremony, President Trump tweeted: "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!"

The dismantling ceremony is planned for just under three weeks before June 12, the date Trump is scheduled to meet with Kim Jong Un in Singapore. The meeting will be the first time a sitting U.S. president meets with the leader of North Korea.

Richard Fontaine, who served as a foreign policy adviser to Republican Senator John McCain, told NPR's David Greene the announcement of talks between Kim and Trump is a "game changer," but the escalation of talks to two heads of state opens up a certain degree of diplomatic uncertainty:

"It's a game changer in terms of the diplomacy, certainly. I mean, often these kinds of processes lead up to a presidential-level meeting if they are successful. So you would have lower-level officials work a disarmament process, or something, and then have the heads of state come in and close it if it sort of materialized into something. "This is completely flipping the script on that, and so it will start at the highest possible levels. The upside is that maybe this makes a deal more possible. The downside is if it fails then we've hit the diplomatic cliff and could fall off the other side."

If the dismantling occurs at the end of the month, it will not be the first time North Korea has publicly destroyed a nuclear facility. In 2008, international journalists looked on as a water cooling tower at a facility called Yongbyon was destroyed. According to CNN, officials said it was a location where plutonium was extracted.

In her reporting at the time, CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour said, "They fired a warning flare and then in three minutes the whole thing came tumbling down in a massive cloud of smoke."

"There was a moment of stunned silence as the magnitude of what had happened sunk in," she added.</s>North Korea has scheduled a “ceremony” to dismantle its nuclear on May 23-25 ahead of President Donald Trump’s summit with leader Kim Jong Un next month, state media said Saturday.

North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Saturday that all the tunnels at the country’s northeastern testing ground will be destroyed by explosion and that observation and research facilities and ground-based testing units will also be removed. The dramatic and symbolic event is part of the Hermit Kingdom’s pledge to discontinue nuclear tests.

“The Nuclear Weapon Institute and other concerned institutions are taking technical measures for dismantling the northern nuclear test ground of the DPRK in order to ensure transparency of discontinuance of the nuclear test,” said the announcement. DPRK is an acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The nuclear site that will be dismantled is located in Pukyong, Yonhap News reported.

The announcement comes after Trump said he would hold a summit with Kim in Singapore on June 12. It will be the first meeting ever between a sitting U.S. president and the leader of North Korea.

Kim had revealed plans to shut down the nuclear test site during his summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in last month.

On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said North Korea can look forward to “a future brimming with peace and prosperity” if it agrees to quickly give up its nuclear weapons.

The North said they plan to invite journalists from the United States, South Korea, China, Russia and Britain to inspect the process.

North Korea’s six known nuclear tests have taken place in Punggye-ri, a location in the northeastern part of North Korea where a system of tunnels have been dug under Mount Mantap, Reuters reported.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that the U.S. would lift sanctions against North Korea if the latter would dismantle its nuclear weapons program.