US President Joe Biden is considering visiting Korea’s Demilitarized Zone during his trip to Asia this month, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Thursday.
Biden is scheduled to visit South Korea and Japan from May 20-24.
Psaki said the White House continues to finalize details of programming in Asia, but a trip to the highly fortified Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas is a stopover for many visiting the country.
Several former US presidents and Biden himself visited the DMZ before becoming president, but when former President Donald Trump met with Kim Jong Un in June, he was the first to meet with a North Korean leader there. As part of their failed attempts in 2019. persuade him to give up his nuclear weapons and missile programs.
Psaki reiterated the US assessment that North Korea may be ready to conduct its seventh nuclear test this month. North Korea has not tested a nuclear bomb since 2017, but this year it resumed testing of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“We share this information with our allies and partners and cooperate closely with them,” Psaki said.
US and South Korean officials have said for weeks that there are signs of new construction at Punggye-ri, North Korea’s only known nuclear test site, and that Pyongyang may soon test another bomb.
source: Noticias
