Secretary of State Mike Pomepo confirmed to reporters in Seoul that Kim Jong Un has agreed to allow international inspectors to visit Punggye-ri, the dismantled nuclear teting site. A date has not yet been set, but Pompeo says that is just a question of logistics.
Punggye-ri was a hollowed up series of tunnels under a mountain, wherein the North Korean government conducted several successful nuclear weapons tests over the past 12 years. The site was dismantled in April and May, as part of a deal to move toward denuclearization.
While reporters were welcomed to oversee the collapsing of the site, some critics complained that international inspectors were never allowed to conduct close-up inspections to confirm the site was totally unusable. Ironically, many of those same critics are now dismissing the invitation for inspectors as meaningless, since the site was already dismantled months ago.
The point of inviting the inspectors isn’t to provide new access, however, it is to allow verification of what has already been done, to the point that those opposed to a peace process with North Korea can no longer dismiss measures already taken or insinuate that North Korea has been something less than forthcoming with providing they have followed through.
Let there be peace on earth!
While I am certainly happy that some the US & NK are no longer engaged in saber rattling, I think you overestimate the value of this particular “breakthrough.” No one is dismantling nuclear weapons, or weapons production facilities; NK is dismantling a test site which, iirc, they didn’t even use for their last test. Also, if NK is manufacturing the same type of nukes as the one they last tested, why do they actually need the test site? Did their prototype misfire? No, it worked just fine. So what would they have to test, exactly? And what will the US offer in response, and if nothing is offered, why should NK continue to make gestures of this sort? But that is only the surface of the problem.
The heart of the problem is this demand for “denuclearization.” If the US offers a peace treaty ending the Korean War as a quid pro quo for denuking, can the US be trusted to honor said treaty, especially if NK no longer has nukes to deter a US attack?
Doesn’t that pompous fool realizes that America is going to have to give North Korea something in exchange for their giving up their nukes? Those neocon idiots think that the whole World is so blinded by our goodness, that they will willingly put their own people at risk just for the chance of an “atta-boy” from us.
This is analogous to allowing the IAEA to inspect the Alamagordo test site.
When are we getting the investigation of the US nuke sites (in the USA and in the NATO lands they store them in as well)? When will the USA follow the rules of the NPT it has signed and start reducing its nukes?