“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. 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. 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. 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. 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. “Something is clearly happening there.”

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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. 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. 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.
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.