Joe Biden Inaugurated As President, Will Kim Jong-un Go For A Nuclear Test?

JAKARTA - North Korea is holding an eight-day Congress of the ruling Labor Party at the House of Culture April 25, Pyongyang, which will finish this week.

On one occasion at this congress, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un named the United States as the main enemy. Then, he also promised to expand the nuclear and high-speed missile program, despite international sanctions.

Kim mentioned a number of weapons being developed, ranging from multi-warhead rockets, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), supersonic warheads, to nuclear-powered submarines.

The goal, to achieve the ability to make a preemptive nuclear strike, as well as the ability to counterattack capable of wiping out anything within 15,000 kilometers. The distance that reaches the United States.

"Our foreign political activities must be focused and directed to subdue the US, our main enemy and the main obstacle to our innovative development," Kim told Congress, launched Al Jazeera, Thursday, January 14.

"The reality is that we can achieve peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula, as we continue to build our national defenses and suppress the US military threat," Kim added.

Lee Sung-yoon, Professor of Korean Studies at Tufts University, USA, saw Kim's promise as a clear and detailed threat related to nuclear policy.

Moreover, North Korea recently showed off a new weapon, an ICBM that can be transported by road. Once operational, the missile is believed by international analysts to become the largest in the world.

Lee believes that the threat issued by Kim indicates the possibility of missile tests and nuclear provocations, violating the moratorium on nuclear testing and the ICBM, as soon as US President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated.

This is because North Korea has "the experience" to carry out missile and nuclear tests at the start of the new government in the United States. This can be seen when Barack Obama and Donald Trump served as president.

Shortly after Obama took office, Pyongyang conducted its second underground nuclear test in 2009. Meanwhile, in Trump's first year in office, Pyongyang tested an ICBM as well as a hydrogen bomb for the first time.

"The ongoing political turmoil in the United States has given Kim much incentive to raise the temperature, to use provocation and pressure on the Joe Biden administration," Lee said.

Meanwhile, Sogang University Professor of International Relations, South Korea Kim Jae-chun said North Korea had a track record of testing the courage of the newly appointed American President.

However, this time North Korea is believed to be thinking hard to repeat it, because of the dire domestic economic situation.

"Because the US will respond to every provocation (missile and nuclear tests) with increasingly harsher sanctions. China and Russia will find it difficult to side with North Korea if they carry out major (missile and nuclear) testing," he said.