Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have risen as Pyongyang has stepped up launches of weapons, including a banned ICBM.
According to a senior US government official, the United States believes China and Russia have leverage they can use to persuade North Korea not to resume nuclear tests.
The official, who spoke to Portal on condition of anonymity, said that while the US had said since May North Korea was preparing to resume nuclear testing for the first time since 2017, it was not clear when such going to conduct a test.
South Korea has also been warning of a seventh nuclear test for months, while the United Nations nuclear watchdog said last week that Pyongyang was preparing for a test.
“We are very confident that they have made preparations,” the US official told Portal. “We believe they could do this… I can’t tell you ‘we believe it will be today for the following reasons,’ because we just don’t have that level of knowledge.”
Washington wanted Russia and China to do everything they could to dissuade Pyongyang.
“We think they (North Korea) are making calculations on the level of susceptibility to others in the region, I think, especially Russia and China. And I think the Russian and Chinese attitude have an influence on them.”
The US has asked for a public session of the UN Security Council, where Moscow and Beijing are among the five permanent members with veto powers, to discuss North Korea after a spate of missile launches, including an ICBM, by South Korea and Japan on Thursday discovered.
North Korea is barred from conducting nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches by Security Council sanctions, which have been tightened over the years to try to cut funding for its weapons programs.
But growing disagreement in the 15-member body, exacerbated by Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine, has eroded consensus on how to deal with North Korea. In May, Russia and China vetoed a US-led attempt to impose more UN sanctions on Pyongyang over its ballistic missile re-testing, after backing tougher sanctions in 2017.
The US-South Korea joint military exercise Vigilant Storm, which began on Monday, has been extended because of the North Korean weapon launches [File: Yonhap via Reuters]
The US official said Pyongyang may have delayed resuming nuclear testing because China, its closest ally, recently concluded its Communist Party Congress, an event held every five years.
The COVID-19 outbreak in North Korea may also have delayed military developments, he said, making the country “more focused on ways it could get support from China in particular.”
“China and Russia have long been known to be opponents of the DPRK’s nuclear program,” the official said, referring to North Korea by the initials of its official name. “So… it is our belief and certainly our expectation that they will use their influence to try to stop the DPRK from conducting a nuclear test.”
The official again urged North Korea to resume dialogue with the US, which collapsed in 2019 over sanctions lifting, and said Washington is ready to work directly with Pyongyang and talk about humanitarian aid.
North Korea has conducted a record number of gun launches this year, and this week’s tests came amid ongoing large-scale military exercises between the US and South Korea, which Pyongyang claims are aggressive and a “provocation.”
The ICBM was among three ballistic missiles launched Thursday, a day after it fired at least 20 missiles, the most in a single day, including one that landed off the coast of South Korea for the first time.
Seoul responded by dispatching warplanes to launch air-to-surface missiles into waters north of its maritime border.
On Thursday, the US and South Korea announced they would extend so-called Vigilant Storm drills by a day over North Korea’s ICBM test, a decision Pyongyang called “very dangerous.”
According to the Seoul military, it fired a salvo of artillery shells into a maritime “buffer zone” between the two Koreas just before midnight.
About 80 artillery shells were fired at 23:28 (14:28 GMT), the Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Friday morning.
The barrage was in “clear violation” of the 2018 agreement that established the buffer zone to ease tensions between the two countries, she added.