The United States believes that China and Russia have the leverage to prevent North Korea from resuming nuclear bomb testing, a senior US government official said on Thursday.
The official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said that while the United States had said since May that North Korea was preparing to resume nuclear tests for the first time since 2017, it was unclear when it would be able to carry out such a test. .
“We have a high level of confidence that they have made the preparations,” he said. “We believe they could do it… I can’t say ‘we think 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 what they could to deter Pyongyang.
“We think they (North Korea) are making calculations about the degree of receptivity to others in the region, I think, particularly Russia and China. And I think Russian and Chinese attitudes have an influence on them,” she said.
The official spoke after the United States asked the UN Security Council to meet publicly to discuss North Korea following a series of missile launches, including what the Pentagon said was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
North Korea has been banned from carrying out nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches by the Security Council, which has tightened sanctions on Pyongyang over the years to try to cut funding for those programs.
While both Russia and China supported tougher sanctions after North Korea’s latest nuclear test, they vetoed a US-led effort in May to impose more UN sanctions on North Korea’s new ballistic missile launches. .
The US official said Pyongyang may have delayed resuming nuclear testing because of China, including its recently concluded Communist Party congress, and because of North Korea’s COVID-19 outbreak in May and June.
He said he believed the latest crisis had left North Korea “more focused on ways in which they could gain support particularly from China.”
“China and Russia have long been opposed to 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 it is certainly our expectation, that they will use the leverage they have to try to get the DPRK not to conduct a nuclear test.”
Reiterating calls for Pyongyang to resume dialogue with the United States, the official said Washington was prepared to engage directly with North Korea and discuss humanitarian assistance.
Asked how stable he believed Kim Jong Un’s North Korean government was, the official said: “We see no evidence that there are specific challenges that could undermine Kim Jong Un’s position. On the other hand, I’m not sure I necessarily would.”
Asked what was driving North Korea’s recent wave of missile tests, which Pyongyang called a response to “aggressive” military exercises between the US and South Korea, the official said: “We don’t know because they are not speaking directly to us. ”.
The official rejected growing calls among some North Korean experts for Washington to recognize North Korea as a nuclear power that will never disarm.
“There is an extraordinarily strong global consensus that is represented in a whole series of UN Security Council resolutions that were obviously passed with the support of all P5 members, that the DPRK should not, and should not, be a nation. nuclear”. he said.
“No country is asking for this. The consequences of changing policy, I think, would be profoundly negative,” she concluded.
*Reporting by David Brunnstrom and Steve Holland; Edited by Richard Pullin
Source: CNN Brasil
I’m James Harper, a highly experienced and accomplished news writer for World Stock Market. I have been writing in the Politics section of the website for over five years, providing readers with up-to-date and insightful information about current events in politics. My work is widely read and respected by many industry professionals as well as laymen.
