As the U.S. presidential election approaches, North Korea will likely escalate tensions on the Korean Peninsula in an attempt to get attention and increase leverage for future negotiations with the United States, analysts said.
On Friday, North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and Rodong Sinmum newspaper released several photos showing leader Kim Jong Un visiting what the North’s media said is a uranium enrichment facility. It was the first time the North has disclosed a uranium enrichment facility publicly.
In a recent speech marking the 76th anniversary of the founding of his government, Kim said North Korea will “redouble its measures and efforts to make all the armed forces of the state, including the nuclear force, fully ready for combat.”
Kim said he was acting because of the “grave threat” posed by “the reckless expansion” of a U.S.-led regional military bloc, according to KCNA.
It remains unclear what the revelation means for the North’s nuclear capability, but it drew international attention.
Nuclear escalation
Despite the disclosure, the European Union said Monday that North Korea will never have the status of an acknowledged nuclear weapon state.
“The EU position is that the DPRK must immediately comply with UN Security Council resolutions by abandoning all its nuclear weapons, other weapons of mass destruction, ballistic missile programmes and existing nuclear programmes, in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner and cease all related activities,” said a spokesperson for the EU in an email to VOA Korean.
Evans Revere, who served as acting U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said Kim probably believes that Trump, of the two presidential candidates, is more likely to help North Korea advance its agenda.
“Pyongyang wants to be accepted as a nuclear state and it is trying to undermine and eventually end the U.S.-ROK [South Korea] alliance and get rid of U.S. forces who are stationed on and around the Korean Peninsula,” Revere told VOA Korean Friday on the phone.
“Which of the two U.S. presidential candidates does North Korea see as more likely to help achieve its goals?” he asked.
Revere, however, said he does not view North Korea’s recent actions as aimed at swaying the U.S. presidential election, stressing that what North Korea does and says is “not always about us.”
Sydney Seiler, who was the national intelligence officer for North Korea on the U.S. National Intelligence Council from 2020-2023, told VOA Korean in a Zoom interview Thursday it may be “a step too far” to assume North Korea is trying to influence the upcoming election in the U.S. through its provocative behaviors.
However, Seiler said, Pyongyang could be tweaking the timing of its actions “to remain on everybody’s radar screen.”
Seiler predicted that North Korea will hold off on its next major provocations, such as a seventh nuclear test, until after the next U.S. president is elected.
North Korea’s intention
Park Won-gon, a professor in the Department of North Korean Studies of Ewha Womans University in Seoul, told VOA Korean Friday that the North Korean regime may have considered testing its nuclear weapons for a seventh time to show that President Joe Biden’s North Korea policy has not worked and to “turn it to Trump’s advantage.”
“The situation, however, has now changed,” Park said. “Trump has been touting his close relationship with Kim Jong Un, so Pyongyang may have concluded that another nuclear test will not help Trump.”
Hong Min, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, agreed that North Korea is not likely to conduct the seventh nuclear test before the November election.
“None of the countries that possess nuclear weapons have disclosed their nuclear facilities, especially enriched uranium facilities, but making such an unprecedented disclosure was to replace the nuclear test card,” Hong told VOA Korean Friday.
Kim In-tae, senior research fellow at South Korea’s Institute for National Security Strategy, said a seventh nuclear test is still a possibility.
“North Korea’s foreign ministry declared it will prepare itself for a long-term nuclear confrontation with the United States,” Kim told VOA Korean Friday, referring to a Sept. 9 statement released by Pyongyang.
“They are now saying that they will strengthen their nuclear offensive from a longer-term perspective, regardless of the U.S. presidential election,”
Kim said there is a possibility that North Korea will gradually ramp up its provocations, up to the test of a nuclear weapon.
North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear test in September 2017.
VOA’s Kim Hyungjin contributed to this report.
