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North Korea Turns Up Pressure on the United States for Concessions

The North said it conducted an “important test” at a missile-engine site ahead of a Dec. 31 deadline set by its leader, Kim Jong-un, for a new proposal from Washington on denuclearization.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a meeting with President Trump in Vietnam in February.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

SEOUL, South Korea — With North Korea’s deadline for American concessions fast approaching, the North announced Sunday that it had conducted a “very important test” at a missile-engine site, rapidly ramping up pressure after months of carefully calibrated provocations.

Although President Trump has generally played down the North’s actions, on Sunday — just weeks before the Dec. 31 deadline — he issued a strong statement of his own, tweeting: “Kim Jong Un is too smart and has far too much to lose, everything actually, if he acts in a hostile way.”

Analysts said North Korea had most likely conducted a ground-based test of a new type of engine for long-range ballistic missiles. But the North did not yet describe the test or release pictures of it, as it has in the past, so it is unclear whether it was a success.

Still, if an engine was tested, analysts say it could be a warning that Mr. Kim is considering returning to long-range missile tests. It was a series of such launches in 2017 that provoked a crisis with the United States as it became clear that the North’s longest-range missiles were capable of reaching the West Coast of the United States, and perhaps beyond.

Mr. Kim last year announced a halt to all tests of those intercontinental missiles and nuclear weapons, a self-imposed moratorium that Mr. Trump has repeatedly cited as one of the main achievements in his on-again, off-again diplomacy with Mr. Kim. Should they resume, it could mark a complete breakdown in what Mr. Trump had hoped would be his signature foreign policy achievement.

The latest provocation comes after a series of short-range missile tests and statements by senior North Korean leaders that indicate Mr. Kim is running out of patience with diplomacy that has not won him the relief he craves from crippling sanctions. Those statements included a warning by a vice foreign minister that “it is entirely up to the U.S. what Christmas gift it will select to get.”

North Korea has not been explicit about what might happen after Dec. 31, except that Mr. Kim has warned of finding a “new way” if Washington persists with sanctions and tries to force an unpalatable denuclearization deal. But senior North Korean officials have hinted that the new approach might include resuming nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests.

It has been obvious for months that the groundbreaking diplomacy between Mr. Kim and President Trump has stalled. Just hours before the test was announced Sunday, the North’s ambassador to the United Nations said that denuclearization was off the negotiating table — the key element of discussions between the two presidents over the course of three meetings.

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A television news program about North Korea’s announcement broadcasted in a Seoul railway station on Sunday.Credit...Lee Jin-Man/Associated Press

On Saturday, responding to the North Korean announcement that denuclearization was off the table, Mr. Trump emphasized his new relationship with Mr. Kim — seeming to suggest that would overcome the problems. He kept repeating that he did not believe Mr. Kim wanted to “interfere” in the 2020 American elections, presumably a reference to how a return to missile launches and nuclear tests could create a confrontation just as Mr. Trump was running for re-election.

By Sunday morning, Mr. Trump seemed to be hardening his tone with his Twitter message, which he put in a political context.

“He does not want to void his special relationship with the President of the United States or interfere with the U.S. Presidential Election in November.”

The president also claimed that Mr. Kim had committed himself to denuclearization when the two men first met in Singapore, in June 2018. But that commitment called for working “toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,’’ wording that the North has used for decades to mean that it would dismantle its nuclear arsenal only if there was a complete pullback of American forces, including nuclear-capable ships, submarines and other weaponry.

The U.S. has never publicly discussed what it might be willing to give up, and has always suggested North Korean denuclearization must come first.

The mere announcement Sunday of the test was a sign the Singapore agreement was unraveling. At a news conference in Singapore, Mr. Trump had said Mr. Kim had promised him he would dismantle the very site where the North conducted Saturday’s test.

“Chairman Kim has told me that North Korea is already destroying a major missile engine testing site,” he said at the time. “That’s not in your signed document; we agreed to that after the agreement was signed. That’s a big thing — for the missiles that they were testing, the site is going to be destroyed very soon.”

The test was carried out on Saturday at the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground, also called the Tongchang-ri site near the North Korean border with China, a spokesman for the North’s Academy of National Defense Science said in a statement that was carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The brief statement provided no further details. The site is also used to launch small satellites aboard North Korean rockets. But a rocket launch would have been instantly detected by American and other satellites.

The academy reported “the results of the successful test of great significance” to the Central Committee of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, the spokesman said. The spokesman said that the successful test “will have an important effect on changing the strategic position” of North Korea “once again in the near future.”

While Mr. Trump falls back on his relationship with Mr. Kim — both their meetings and their exchange of what he has called “beautiful letters” — even top White House aides acknowledge that progress has been completely stalled. Subsequent meetings with Mr. Trump, in Hanoi and Korea, and continuing negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington have failed to resolve differences over how to implement the broadly worded Singapore deal.

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Mr. Trump with Kim Jong Un in Hanoi.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Now Mr. Kim seems to be tiring of all the negotiating. In Hanoi early this year he offered to shutter the Yongbyon nuclear site, the country’s oldest and largest nuclear facility, in return for a lifting of the most onerous sanctions. But the Trump Administration has said that is insufficient because so much of his nuclear and missile capability is now outside the Yongbyon facility.

Mr. Kim, who has promised his long-suffering people economic recovery, is scheduled to convene his party’s Central Committee this month to “discuss and decide on crucial issues​,” given “the changed situation at home and abroad​,” according to the North Korean state media.

In the meantime, analysts are searching for clues about the technical importance of Saturday’s test. Kim Dong-yub, a North Korea expert at the Seoul-based Institute for Far Eastern Studies, said it may have involved a new type of ICBM engine that uses solid fuel.

North Korea’s existing ICBMs use liquid fuel. North Korea has been trying to convert its missiles from liquid fuel to solid, which is easier to transport. Solid fuel missiles are also faster to launch and easier to hide,​ thus making it harder for the United States military to find and target ​its missiles before they are launched.

Although American intelligence agencies estimate North Korea has between 30 and 60 nuclear weapons, it remains unclear if the weapons — once loaded on a long-range missile — could withstand the heat and vibrations of re-entering the earth’s atmosphere.

“North Korea is avoiding violations of its long-range missile test moratorium for now, but it is still improving the propulsion and precision of its missiles so that it can claim a credible nuclear deterrent​,” said Leif-Eric Easley, associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul​. ​

“The Kim regime knows that U.S. surveillance flights and satellites are watching. So with the activity at Sohae, Pyongyang is also trying to raise international concerns that it may intensify provocations and walk away from denuclearization talks next year. ​”

Choe Sang-Hun is the Seoul bureau chief for The New York Times, focusing on news on North and South Korea. More about Choe Sang-Hun

David E. Sanger is a national security correspondent. In a 36-year reporting career for The Times, he has been on three teams that have won Pulitzer Prizes, most recently in 2017 for international reporting. His newest book is “The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage and Fear in the Cyber Age.” More about David E. Sanger

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 9 of the New York edition with the headline: North Korea Says That It Conducted ‘Very Important Test’ at a Missile-Engine Site. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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