March 30, 2017
Experts available for comment
Intelligence authorities in South Korea anticipate that North Korea will conduct a nuclear test in the near future, possibly as early as the first week of April. Officials in Seoul say that the DPRK could conduct a test ahead of the upcoming meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on April 6 and 7, or in the lead-up to the late North Korean founder Kim Il Sung’s 105th birthday anniversary on April 15. Given North Korea’s ballistic missile tests in February and March of this year and the ratcheting up of tensions between the US and DPRK, another nuclear test might be imminent.
An interactive 3D model of North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site created by CNS for NTI shows that North Korea has sufficient space in its tunnel complex for additional and possibly larger nuclear tests.
A new test would mark Pyongyang’s sixth nuclear test. North Korea carried out its first nuclear test in 2006 and then conducted four more in 2009, 2013, and January and September of 2016.
Experts Available for Comment
For more on the implications of this latest development, the following CNS experts are available for comment:
- Jeffrey Lewis
Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program (EANP)
[email protected] • 831-647-6616 - Josh Pollack
Editor, Nonproliferation Review and Senior Research Associate
[email protected] • 202-842-3100 x307 - Melissa Hanham
Senior Research Associate, EANP
[email protected] • 831-647-6507 - Andrea Berger
Senior Research Associate and Senior Program Manager
[email protected] - Catherine Dill
Senior Research Associate, Export Control Program
[email protected] • 202-842-3100 x309 - Dave Schmerler
Research Associate
[email protected] • 831-647-4619
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- “The Detonation Detectives: How to decipher a North Korean missile test in just 72 hours,” profile of the open source intelligence team at MIIS
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- “Why Is North Korea’s Fifth Nuclear Test Different From Its Other Tests?” analysis by Jeffrey Lewis
- Video analysis of January 8 sub-launched missile test, analysis by Catherine Dill
- “Are You Scared about North Korea’s Thermonuclear ICBM?” analysis by Jeffrey Lewis
- “The Future Impact of North Korea’s Emerging Nuclear Deterrent,” analysis by Leonard S. Spector
