Denuclearization

North Korea appears to have blown up tunnels at its only nuclear test site, in a move to reduce regional tensions.

Foreign reporters at the Punggye-ri site in the north-east said they had witnessed a huge blast. Pyongyang later said the site had been dismantled.

The move by the North was seen as part of a diplomatic rapprochement with South Korea and the US.

But scientists believe it partially collapsed after the last test in September 2017, rendering it unusable.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday scoffed at American demands that his country curb its military ambitions and issued his own set of demands to Europe to remain in the nuclear deal.

In his first speech since U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo laid out the U.S. strategy against Iran, the Islamic Republic’s most senior leader fired back, threatening to withdraw from the deal and scale up Iran’s nuclear work if Europe didn’t meet seven conditions.

North Korea early Thursday threatened to back away from the much-anticipated upcoming summit with the U.S. and called Vice President Mike Pence a "political dummy," ratcheting up the rhetoric after months of signaling an openness to compromise.

The dig at Pence apparently stemmed from his Fox News interview on Monday, when he told Martha MacCallum on "The Story," that North Korea "asked for the meeting" with the U.S.

Vice President Mike Pence warned North Korea on Monday that it must reach a deal with the U.S. or face serious consequences.

“There was some talk about the Libyan model last week, and you know, as the President made clear, this will only end like the Libyan model ended if [North Korean leader] Kim Jong-un doesn’t make a deal,” Pence said on Monday.

North Korea has scheduled a “ceremony” to dismantle its nuclear testing site on May 23-25 ahead of President Donald Trump’s summit with leader Kim Jong Un next month.

North Korea has scheduled the dismantlement of its nuclear test site for sometime between May 23 and 25 depending on weather conditions in order to uphold its previous pledge to discontinue nuclear tests, state media reported on Saturday.

North Korea’s state news agency on Saturday called the inter-Korean summit a turning point for the Korean peninsula, while U.S. President Donald Trump said he would maintain sanctions pressure on Pyongyang ahead of his own unprecedented meeting with Kim Jong Un.

For the first time in over a decade, the leaders of a divided Korea will sit down Friday to negotiate an end to a decades-long rivalry which has threatened at times to plunge the world into nuclear war.

North Korea’s pledge to dismantle its Punggye-ri nuclear test site sounds like a big step forward but verifying whether that will actually happen will be difficult, underlining the complexities of any deal it may strike with the United States.