We have nothing more to lose
And Kim Yong Chol, vice chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, also branded Mr Trump an “impatient old man” in a diatribe reminiscent of inflammatory rhetoric previously used by Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un. A statement attributed to Chol by state news agency KCNA said: “We have nothing more to lose.” Chol, a senior North Korean official who was instrumental in arranging a failed second summit between Kim Jong Un and Trump, said the United States was ignoring a year-end deadline set for Washington to soften its stance in stalled denuclearisation talks.
He was Kim might change his views toward “impatient old man” Mr Trump if he continued to make “inappropriate, dangerous” comments.
Mr Trump said on Sunday Kim risks losing “everything” if he resumes hostility and his country must denuclearise, after the North said it had carried out a “successful test of great significance.”
Satellite imagery captured before and after the test suggested North Korea had tested a rocket engine, experts said today.
US President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un (Image: GETTY)
North Korea’s latest missile test (Image: GETTY)
It was the latest of a series of weapons tests and statements from Pyongyang, as its year-end deadline for Washington to soften its stance in denuclearisation talks draws near.
KCNA said yesterday the North had carried out the test at its Sohae satellite launching station, a rocket-testing ground which US and South Korean officials once said Pyongyang had promised to shut down.
The test results would help the North’s strategic position, KNCA added, without elaborating on what was tried out, but the site has previously been used to send rockets and satellites into space.
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Kim Jong-Un with Kim Yong-Chol and other military top brass (Image: GETTY)
Analyst Jeffrey Lewis said commercial satellite images taken on Saturday by Planet Labs showed vehicles and equipment likely to be used in a rocket engine experiment, while those captured on Sunday morning had signs of a conducted test.
Mr Lewis, the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California, added: ”Vehicles and objects appear on December 7 to conduct the test.
“They are mostly gone on December 8, but the ground appears to have been disturbed by the exhaust from the test.”
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Kim Yong-Chol meets Donald Trump (Image: GETTY)
Kim Yong Chol is a former North Korean general (Image: GETTY)
Some South Korean experts said North Korea may have tested a solid fuel rocket engine, which could allow it to field ICBMs which are easier to hide and faster to deploy.
A diplomatic source in Seoul told Reuters: “They may well have tried to see the thrust and duration of a solid-propellant rocket engine for ICBMs.”
“That’s effectively what they can do on the ground at this point without firing anything into the air.”
North Korea’s nuclear timeline (Image: Daily Express)
Chol’s outburst comes days after North Korea’s foreign ministry said if Mr Trump adopted a confrontational stance, it “must really be diagnosed as the relapse of the dotage of a dotard”.
The insult has been deployed before – two years ago, when tensions spiked two years ago after a series of previous nuclear missile tests, Mr Trump described Kim as “little rocket man”, and the North Korean leader hit back by calling Mr Trump a “mentally deranged US dotard”.
Kim has recently warned he may take a “new path” if the United States fails to address his demands.
The Korean peninsular (Image: GETTY)
He did not say what the path would be, but observers have said it might include the launch of a space satellite, which would help North Korea demonstrate progress in its rocket capabilities without returning to overt military provocations, such as firing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
Talks over the future of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile arsenals are stalled despite two years of efforts and three unprecedented meetings between Kim and US President Donald Trump.
What exactly Kim’s new path may be is unclear, and there is little direct insight into the thinking of the North Korean leader and his inner circle beyond a steady stream of state media reports warning that the deadline should not be ignored.