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Blue House Office of National Security director Chung Eui-yong meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang on Mar. 5. (provided by Blue House)

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) reported to the National Assembly on Mar. 26 that it believes North Korea is committed to denuclearization. The National Assembly’s Intelligence Committee convened a meeting that was attended by NIS Second Deputy Director Kim Sang-gyun and NIS Director Suh Hoon, who visited North Korea as a special envoy last month. During the meeting, the NIS officials told lawmakers that they believe

“North Korea is strongly committed to dialogue and also committed to denuclearization,” said an NIS senior official. This was how the NIS responded when committee members asked about North Korea’s intentions after the NIS briefed the committee on the results of special envoys’ visits to North Korea, the US, China, Japan and Russia.

“There have been no changes to the six points in the inter-Korean statement” about the commitment to denuclearization and holding an inter-Korean summit, the official said when asked about the NIS’s briefing on the situation in North Korea. Committee members reportedly asked about a contingency plan in case North Korea’s denuclearization is not guaranteed through the inter-Korean summit at the end of April and the North Korea-US summit in May.

The NIS reportedly said it would not provide a separate assessment about press reports that North Korea appears to have halted tunneling work at its nuclear test site in Punggye Village, where each of its six previous nuclear tests have been conducted. Suh left the meeting after an initial briefing that lasted for over twenty minutes.

By Jung Yu-gyung, staff reporter

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