The North Korean state media has announced that dictator Kim Jong-un has suspended North Korea’s nuclear and long-range missile tests. The communist country also plans to close down its nuclear test site, according to media reports.
According to Fox News, the Korean Central News Agency announced:
"From April 21, North Korea will stop nuclear tests and launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles," the Korean Central News Agency said, according to Yonhap News. "The North will shut down a nuclear test site in the country's northern side to prove the vow to suspend nuclear test."
The British newspaper The Guardian notes the announcement comes a day after South Korea expressed their desire for a denuclearized Korean peninsula.
“North Korea says it has suspended nuclear and long-range missile tests, and plans to close its nuclear test site.
The announcement was made by the state news agency KCNA early on Saturday morning, the day after a hotline between the leaders of North and South Koreawent live.
The North’s decisions were made in a meeting of the ruling party’s full central committee which had convened to discuss a “new stage” of policies.
It came a day after the South’s president, Moon Jae-in, said that Pyongyang had expressed a desire for the “complete denuclearisation” of the Korean peninsula without attaching preconditions such as the withdrawal of US troops.
The two countries are due to hold a historic summit next Friday on the southern side of the demilitarised zone, a heavily armed strip of land that that has divided the peninsula since hostilities in the Korean war ended in 1953."
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This will be updated as more news comes in.
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