North Korea made the welcome announcement April 22 that they will suspend nuclear and inter-continental ballistic missile tests and shut down a nuclear test site in the country’s northern region. This announcement comes before highly-anticipated meetings between the two Koreas next week and meetings between North Korea and the United States next month.
This was welcome news to President Donald Trump who has had the issues with North Korea at the forefront of his presidency.
“Wow, we haven’t given up anything & they have agreed to denuclearization (so great for World), site closure, & no more testing!” said Trump via Twitter.
Despite the positive implications of this, President Trump is spreading what he calls “fake news.” In no way did North Korea say that they were dismantling their entire nuclear program. In fact, North Korea said that they are content with the current ability of their nuclear program and have little incentive to do so.
North Korea’s nuclear program is the largest deterrent they have against foreign invasion or military intervention. Most western countries detest the communist government of North Korea and are concerned with the deplorable conditions the citizens live in.
North Korea’s real reasons for stopping the program, however, remain to be seen. Some experts believe the country stopped the program for economic reasons; 22 percent of the countries budget goes into the military while its average citizens live on 1,700 dollars a year. The high sanctions on North Korea’s economy by the United States and other countries only increase the economic pressure on the country.
However, regardless of the reason, this is still a powerful symbolic action by North Korea, giving off the notion that they are, at the very least, interested in hearing out South Korea and the U.S. in the upcoming peace talks.
One goal of the upcoming talks between South Korean president Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is almost certain to be a treaty to end the Korean war. Fighting ended with an armistice in 1953, but no official peace treaty was ever signed. While at this point a official treaty would only serve as a symbolic action, it could go a long way to increasing positive relations between the two countries.