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| North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un inspects a "newly built submarine" which will be deployed in the East Sea of the North, the country's state-run Korean Central News Agency reported Tuesday. KCNA-Yonhap |
By Jung Da-min
Washington will start holding working-level nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea once Pyongyang is "ready," U.S. President Donald Trump said early Tuesday (KST).
"There was a little correspondence recently, very positive correspondence, with North Korea," Trump told reporters at the White House, reaffirming that he and Kim have a "very good relationship."
"When they're ready — when they're ready, we'll be meeting," the U.S. president said without specifiying a time for when the working-level talks will take place and whether the correspondence was between him and Kim Jong-un or other staff.
Hours after Trump's remarks, North Korea's state media Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported its leader Kim Jong-un inspected a "newly built submarine." Political experts in Seoul said the inspection was not intended to send any kind of message to the U.S. ahead of the working-level talks.
"It rather seemed that Kim Jong-un was trying to activate and inspire the minds of his people. The North's release of Kim Jong-un's inspection on a new model submarine to the media is for internal solidarity," said Kim Dong-yub, a professor at Kyungnam University's Institute of Far Eastern Studies.
"North Korean leadership is trying to dispel people's worries about security while pushing forward with its new strategic route of prioritizing the economy after the Byungjin policy." Byungjin was a recent policy emphasizing parallel development of nuclear weapons and economy.
The exact specifications and other relevant details of the North's submarine were unknown, but it's been speculated that the submarine is capable of housing multiple launchers for submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs).
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| North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un inspected a "newly built" submarine, KCNA reported Tuesday. KCNA-Yonhap |
He also said the fact that the KCNA article did not specify details of the new submarine could indicate that the North did not want to break the momentum of the ongoing negotiations with the U.S.
According to the KCNA article, the submarine will "perform its duty in the operational waters of the East Sea of Korea and its operational deployment is near at hand." Specific details on the operational area and the timing of deployment, however, have not been revealed.
Kim Jong-un stressed the operational capacity of a submarine as well as other naval weapons and equipment as an important part of enhancing national defense science.
"(Kim Jong-un) said with pride that the successful building of the Korean-style powerful submarine is the fruition of the noble patriotism and loyalty of officials, scientists, technicians and workers in the field of national defense science and munitions factories who have worked hard to boost national defense capability, true to the Party's policy on attaching importance to defense science and technology," the KCNA said in its article.
