The country acknowledged its first COVID-19 outbreak in May, prolonging already stringent anti-pandemic measures, blocking international engagement and causing economic woes, but doing little to slow its weapons tests.
SEOUL - North Korea forged ahead with its missile programme in 2022 and took steps toward resuming testing of nuclear bombs, as world events including the COVID pandemic and war fractured the already tenuous international pressure against it.
This year provided the clearest evidence yet that North Korea now regards itself as a permanent nuclear weapons power and that Pyongyang has no intention of engaging the United States in denuclearisation talks, said Evans Revere, a former U.S. diplomat. Pyongyang rolled out a series of increasingly capable short-range missiles as well, in what it says is a strategy to deploy tactical nuclear weapons.
"North Korea could at least pretended that it was open to dialogue, but this hasn't been the case," said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a Korea expert at King's College London. "I think that the Kim regime simply wants to improve its capabilities, no matter the consequences."North Korea has for years been banned from conducting nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches by the United Nations Security Council, which had strengthened sanctions on Pyongyang.
North Korea's missile tests have allowed it to refine and in some cases operationally deploy new capabilities that enable the rapid and first use of nuclear weapons in the event of both conventional and nuclear attacks, said Duyeon Kim, of the U.S.-based Center for a New American Security.
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