North Korea Blasts G7 Statement Calling for End to Its Nuclear Program While Trump Signs Deal With Iran

North Korea is a nuclear power and not about to consider giving up its nuclear program. That basic reality came through loud and clear just as President Trump was signing a stopgap deal for suspending if not ending the war with Iran.The stark reminder that North Korea is far more likely than Iran ever was to fire or drop a nuclear warhead slipped off the tongue of the outspoken younger sister of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, presumably with big brother’s full blessing. The target of Yo-jong’s ire was not the American and Israeli campaign to avert the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. Rather, her outburst was in response to a statement issued by President Trump and the leaders of the other G7 countries as they wound up their confab at the French resort of Evian les Bains overlooking Lake Geneva. The G7’s expression of “deep concern about North Korea’s nuclear-and-ballistic missile program” inspired Ms. Kim to histrionic heights.“Possession of nuclear weapons is our core interest that must be upheld, and ‘denuclearization’ is an unwavering line that can never be crossed,” Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency quoted her as saying. “For anyone, touching the core interests of a nuclear-armed state would be the worst disastrous choice.”Interestingly, KCNA identified Yo-jong as leader of the central committee of the North’s Worker’s Party of which Kim Jong-un is general secretary. She previously had been head of the party’s general affairs department after serving as vice director of the “propaganda and agitation department,” from which she issued vituperative statements on her brother’s behalf for years.Yo-jong’s latest outburst came as yet another rebuff to Mr. Trump, who still hankers to see Kim Jong-un for a fourth summit. She clearly had Mr. Trump in mind as she attacked the statement that he signed along with the leaders of the other six G7 countries, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan.‘Nuclear weapons are a powerful means of defending sovereignty granted by the laws of the Republic and the cornerstone of peace guarantees,” she reminded the G7 signatories. “Our core, as a self-defensive and responsive means, will remain permanently unchanged in both identity and existence.”Ms. Kim issued her statement at a time when the North is reported expanding its nuclear program even though it hasn’t tested a warhead since its sixth test in 2017.Signs are that North Korea has expanded its nuclear program after having manufactured at least 50 and possibly 90 or so nuclear warheads, according to intelligence estimates.The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, has said North Korea has been observed “reprocessing of a core load of irradiated fuel from the reactor’s sixth operating cycle.” He described “the ongoing operation of enrichment facilities” as “of serious concern.”Beyond Parallel, which analyses what’s going on in North Korea, cites an IAEA report on satellite imagery showing “the completion of a building at Yongbyon that is widely believed to be a new uranium enrichment plant for producing weapons-grade material for nuclear weapons.”“Any production of enriched uranium would significantly increase the number of nuclear weapons available,” according to Beyond Parallel, a project of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.Iran, before American warplanes knocked out most of its nuclear facilities last year, was working in tandem with North Korea on both its nuclear and missile programs. “The international community started to raise concerns that it might become the ‘next North Korea,” said a report by the European Institute for International Relations issued last year.The report estimated that Iran had “enough fissile material to fuel at least five nuclear weapons.” North Korea, it said, “presents a different challenge, as it has already developed and tested nuclear weapons” while “ continuing to expand both its missile technology and nuclear arsenal.”

North Korea Blasts G7 Statement Calling for End to Its Nuclear Program While Trump Signs Deal With Iran

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