World invited this week to watch nuke site closure

TOKYO— Foreign journalists will be allowed to journey deep into the mountains of North Korea this week to observe the closing of the country’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site in a much-touted display of goodwill before leader Kim Jong Un’s planned summit with President Trump next month.

Expect good imagery, but not much else.

The public display of the closure of the facility on Mount Mantap will likely be heavy on spectacle and light on substance. And the media will be spending much of their time in an unrelated tourism zone that North Korea hopes will be the next big thing for its economy if Kim’s diplomatic overtures pay off in the months ahead.

For sure, the closure is a milestone, marking an end to the world’s last active underground testing site and offering some important insights into Kim’s mind-set as he sets the stage for his meeting with Trump.

Kim announced his plan to close the test site during a gathering of senior party leaders last month, just ahead of his summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. His explanation to the party was that North Korea’s nuclear development is now complete and further underground testing is unnecessary.

North Korea’s Foreign Ministry has invited journalists from China, Russia, the U.S., Britain and South Korea to fly on a charter aircraft from Beijing for what it is calling a “ceremony” marking the event.

They will be put up at a hotel in faraway Wonsan, where the press center will be located, and make what promises to be a lengthy trip to the nuclear site by special train. It’s unclear how long they will be allowed to stay at the site.

What is clear is why they are going to Wonsan, which is the center of a tourism zone the North is trying hard to promote.

Veteran North Korea watchers note that we have been to this rodeo before.

With international talks to dismantle its nuclear program under way in 2008, North Korea called in the foreign media to film the demolition of a 66-foottall cooling tower at its Yongbyon nuclear reactor. The move prompted Washington to take North Korea off its list of state sponsors of terrorism and lift some sanctions.

The talks later fell apart, and the reactor at Yongbyon is once again producing plutonium.

So caution is warranted. None of this is necessarily about denuclearization.