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North Korea may test intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in the first months of the new US administration under the leadership of Joe Biden. This forecast was shared by the South Korean think tank, Yonghap news agency reports.
It is noted that in the past, Pyongyang has already met the change of US leadership with military provocations in order to test Washington's reaction and attract the attention of the new administration. In addition, according to experts from the Asan Institute for Political Research, Biden's plans for diplomatic engagement with the DPRK signal a 180-degree turn from Trump's approach. The new US president is expected to build bottom-up relations with Pyongyang, favoring working-level meetings over bilateral summits, as his predecessor did.
All this can once again slow down negotiations on the nuclear issue, the analytical center notes. “Therefore, the DPRK may decide to launch ICBMs in a desperate attempt to break the deadlock in negotiations, which could become even more serious than it was during the Trump administration,” the institute said in its report.
Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un met for the first time in 2018 in Singapore. Then the two leaders signed an agreement according to which Pyongyang expressed its readiness to renounce its nuclear weapons. Their second summit in early 2019 in Vietnam was interrupted. The US President and the DPRK leader met again in June of that year in the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea, and agreed to resume negotiations. However, in October, negotiations between the two sides reached an impasse.
