North Korea Abandons Nuclear Freeze Pledge

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had previously agreed to suspend nuclear and missile testing in 2018. (Wikimedia Commons)

North Korea announced on January 21 that it will continue nuclear weapon and missile testing in response to new sanctions imposed by the United States on two North Korean companies in early January.

During a visit to South Korea in 2018, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed to suspend nuclear and missile testing during U.S.-North Korean talks, as long as there would be a denuclearization agreement met by December 2019. However, negotiations have been deadlocked since President Donald Trump and Kim failed to reach a mutual agreement at the Hanoi summit last year.

Ju Yong Chol, a representative at North Korea’s Permanent Mission to the UN in Geneva, told the UN-backed Conference on Disarmament that, while North Korea has kept its commitment of halting nuclear testing, the U.S. had yet to follow through on its own commitments to ease sanctions and provide security guarantees.

Despite North Korea’s claims, however, the country has continued to work against the U.S. and the UN. In 2017, for instance, the UN ordered its member states to stop hiring North Korean workers after it became apparent that these workers were providing a direct source of revenue for the North Korean government. North Korea, however, continued to send workers abroad even after the deadline to repatriate its citizens passed in December 2019. In response, the U.S. froze the U.S. assets of the companies using North Korean overseas labor.

“If the United States tries to enforce unilateral demands and persists in imposing sanctions, North Korea may be compelled to seek a new path,” Ju said. Such a path could, according to U.S. military commanders, lead to further technological advances for North Korea’s arsenal, not the least of which could include ICBMs capable of reaching the continental U.S.