WEB DESK: The United States will continue to monitor the possibility of North Korea conducting another nuclear test, a Pentagon spokesperson said Friday, amid concerns that Pyongyang could engage in provocative acts around the U.S. presidential election in November.
Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh made the remarks, after South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik said in a recent interview with Bloomberg that South Korea is not ruling out the possibility of a North Korean nuclear test before or after the U.S. general election.
“It’s something that we’re going to continue to monitor and something that we will always work with our ROK and Japanese allies on and coordinate on,” she said, referring to South Korea by its official name, the Republic of Korea.
“But any tests like that are incredibly destabilizing to the region and we will continue to monitor,” she added.
Singh also reiterated that the U.S. wants to see the “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
In the interview with Bloomberg, Shin said that Pyongyang has completed preparations to conduct what would be its seventh nuclear test “when a decision is made,” and that the North could conduct it before or after the election to “raise its leverage against the U.S.”
