North Korea's weapons programme defies COVID outbreak, reaches 'uncharted territory'

By Josh Smith

SEOUL (Reuters) - 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.

The country acknowledged its first COVID-19 outbreak in May, prolonging already stringent border closures and other anti-pandemic measures, blocking international engagement and causing economic woes, but doing little to slow its weapons tests.

The true extent of COVID there remains unconfirmed amid a lack of testing and independent monitoring.

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.

"We are in dangerous and uncharted territory when it comes to the North Korean threat," he said. "The possibility of denuclearising North Korea has all but disappeared."

North Korea resumed testing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) for the first time since 2017, successfully launching the massive new Hwasong-17, which is believed to have the range to strike anywhere in the United States.

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 also made preparations to reopen its shuttered nuclear test site, raising the prospect of a new nuclear bomb test for the first time since 2017.

With the world distracted by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, and rising competition between Washington and Beijing, the testing seems aimed at making real strides in enhancing the country's military power, analysts said.

"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."