International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi is on a four-day trip to South Korea as concerns grow that North Korea is preparing another nuclear test.
“The IAEA chief’s four-day visit to South Korea this week is an attractive opportunity for North Korea to carry out its long-awaited seventh nuclear test,” said Sung-Yoon Lee, a professor at the Fletcher School of the Tufts University and an expert on Korea. Fox News Digital. “While Mr. Grossi has openly stated that he wants to visit Pyongyang and meet with Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s leaders have shown a propensity to rub it in, that is, add insult to injury, with each nuclear test, thereby strengthening their influence for the next round of talks.
Lee’s comments come as the Korea Times reported on Monday that Rossi will travel to South Korea on Tuesday at the invitation of the South Korean Foreign Ministry and meet with Foreign Minister Park Jin to discuss continued nuclear development. from North Korea. The two are also expected to discuss Japan’s plans to dump radioactive water from its Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean next year, about which South Korean officials have raised concerns.
The meeting comes as concerns have grown that North Korea could be on the cusp of another nuclear weapons test amid reports that Tunnel 3 at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site has been ready for a test. since May, the same site of the country’s 2018 nuclear strike. Test.
NORTH KOREA REPORTEDLY FIRES 130 ARTILLERY ROUNDS, IN VIOLATION OF INTER-KOREAN AGREEMENT
International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi.
(AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)
“Tunnel 3 at its nuclear test site has been prepared since May. While few, if any, outside of North Korea know exactly when the next nuclear test will take place, it is fair to assume that the timing of it will It will suggest a major insult or celebration,” Lee said.
Grossi’s trip to South Korea will be the first since he took office in December 2019 and the first for an IAEA director general since September 2017, something Lee believes can be seen as an opportunity for South Korean leaders. North.
“North Korea’s first nuclear test took place on October 10, 2006, during a three-day US holiday weekend. The second was on May 25, 2009, US Memorial Day,” Lee said. “Kim Jong Il, the father of the current Great Leader, ordered the explosion just an hour after sending a message of condolences to the family of former South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun (2003-2008), who had committed suicide two days earlier while being investigated for corruption. Such an insult despite the fact that Roh provided Kim with $4.4 billion in cash, food, fertilizer, etc., the most of any South Korean leader.”
Lee noted that North Korean leaders have also used nuclear tests to “cling to the Chinese,” pointing to their 2013 test that took place “amid China’s Lunar New Year celebrations, its biggest holiday, which was the first for Xi Jinping as the top leader.”
Warheads are displayed during a military parade during celebrations to mark the 70th anniversary of the North Korean Workers’ Party in Pyongyang, North Korea.
SOUTH KOREA SCRAMBLES JETS WHILE CHINESE AND RUSSIAN WAR PLANES ENTER AIR DEFENSE ZONE
“The fourth nuclear test was on January 6, 2016, four days after the hostage-taking of Otto Warmbier, an American college student from Ohio (and two days before Kim Jong Un’s birthday),” Lee said. “The fifth test was on September 9 later in the year, the Day of the Founding of the Northern Nation. The sixth took place on September 3, 2017, just before Xi Jinping delivered a speech at a major forum. multilateral in Xiamen, China”.
Speaking to South Korean media on Monday, Grossi highlighted progress on Tunnel 3 and said he did not rule out the possibility that a test was imminent, though he argued that planning for such tests often takes longer.
However, he expressed concern about the pace of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, noting the successful test of the ICBM, Hwasong-17, which may reach the United States.
Lee believes North Korea will time its next test to achieve maximum “psychological effect,” which the country would try to use to extract concessions from the international community.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
(Korea Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“Pyongyang assumes that putting pressure on its interlocutors, even outright insulting them, has the psychological effect of making them more desperate and even more likely to make concessions when it finally calls for talks,” Lee said.
