World

Seoul - North Korea promised to close its atomic test site next month and invite US weapons experts to the country, Seoul said Sunday, as Donald Trump expressed optimism about securing a nuclear deal in his summit with the secretive regime.

The reported pledge from the North's leader Kim Jong Un follows weeks of whirlwind diplomacy that saw Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agree to pursue the complete denuclearisation of the peninsula during a historic summit on Friday.

"Kim said, during the summit with President Moon, that he would carry out the closing of the nuclear test site in May," Seoul's presidential spokesman Yoon Young-chan said.

Kim said he "would soon invite experts of South Korea and the US as well as journalists to disclose the process to the international community with transparency", Yoon added.

Tension has been high on the flashpoint peninsula since last year when the North carried its sixth -- and most powerful -- atomic test and test-fired missiles capable of reaching the US mainland.

"Kim said 'the US feels repelled by us, but once we talk, they will realise that I am not a person who will fire a nuclear weapon to the South or the US or target the US," according to Yoon.

"If we meet often (with the US), build trust, end the war and eventually are promised no invasion, why would we live with the nuclear weapons?'"

Kim also slammed speculation during his meeting with Moon that the Punggye-ri test site was already unusable after an underground tunnel there reportedly collapsed.

"As they will see once they visit, there are two more tunnels (in the test site) that are even bigger... and they are in good condition," he was quoted as saying.

The remarks are likely to be seen as a sweetener ahead of Trump's own planned summit with Kim, which the US president said would take place "in the next three or four weeks".

Trump touted his ability to achieve a nuclear deal with the regime at a campaign-style rally in Michigan to cheers and chants of "Nobel! Nobel!".

The US leader has been eager to play up his role in achieving a breakthrough with Pyongyang through his "maximum pressure" campaign involving tough rhetoric, strengthened global sanctions and diplomatic efforts to further isolate the regime.

"Months ago, do you remember what they were saying? 'He's going to get us into nuclear war, they said,'" Trump told supporters in Washington Township, north of Detroit.

"No, strength is going to keep us out of nuclear war, not going to get us in!" he added.

But Trump also sounded a note of caution, saying he was prepared to walk away if US demands for North Korea to relinquish its atomic arsenal in a complete, verifiable and irreversible way were not met.

His remarks came as his new Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told ABC News he had a "good conversation" with Kim during his secret visit to Pyongyang over Easter weekend, adding that Kim was "prepared to... lay out a map that would help us achieve" denuclearisation.

- 'Things are going well' -

Trump held phone calls earlier Saturday with both Moon and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, declaring "things are going very well", as CBS News reported that Mongolia and Singapore are the final two locations under consideration for his meeting with Kim.

The North once invited foreign observers and journalists to its main Yongbyon atomic complex in 2008 when it destroyed an aged cooling tower -- with the dramatic explosion televised globally within hours.

That event did not slow the North's nuclear drive, but the situation looks more upbeat this time, Hong Min, analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told AFP.

"There's a vast difference between blowing up a cooling tower and dismantling your only and, if what Kim said was right, functioning nuclear test site," he said, adding Kim was "giving away in advance one of the major chips he could have saved for the actual meeting with Trump".

"Given this is only a conciliatory move in the build-up to the summit, I think the meeting is likely to produce something more concrete," he said.

Pyongyang has demanded as-yet-unspecified security guarantees to discuss its arsenal, but Kim could use the meeting to agree on "the range of nuclear weapons and facilities to be dismantled and specific time frame to do so", said Hong.

- New era? -

On Saturday the North's state media hailed the inter-Korea summit as a "historic meeting", adding that Kim and Moon "confirmed the common goal of realizing, through complete denuclearisation, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula."

But the phrase is a diplomatic euphemism open to interpretation on both sides.

Pyongyang has long wanted to see an end to the US military presence and nuclear umbrella over the South, but it invaded its neighbour in 1950 and is the only one of the two Koreas to possess nuclear weapons.

When Kim stepped over the military demarcation line that divides the peninsula he became the first North Korean leader to set foot in the South since the Korean War hostilities ceased in 1953 with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

In a joint statement, the two Korean leaders also pledged to seek a peace treaty this year to formally declare the Korean War over.

YANGON — Thousands of people have fled renewed fighting between Myanmar's army and ethnic insurgents in the country's remote north, a United Nations official said, as a long-simmering conflict intensifies.

More than 4,000 people have been displaced in the country's northernmost state of Kachin near the border with China in the last three weeks, Mark Cutts, head of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told AFP late Friday.

The numbers do not include some 15,000 people who have fled since the beginning of the year, and upwards of 90,000 residing in internally displaced persons camps in both Kachin and Shan states since a ceasefire between the government and the powerful Kachin Independence Army broke down in 2011.

"We have received reports from local organisations saying that there are still many civilians who remain trapped in conflict-affected areas," Cutts said of the recent clashes.

"Our biggest concern is for the safety of civilians — including pregnant women, the elderly, small children and people with disabilities. We must ensure that these people are protected."

OCHA has been unable to verify reports that civilians have been killed in the fighting. A Myanmar government spokesman could not be reached for comment.

In addition to the Rohingya Muslim crisis in the western part of mainly Buddhist Myanmar, the country's conflict-hit north has also played host to clashes involving other ethnic minorities, which rarely make headlines.

The Kachin, who mostly live in the country's northernmost state of the same name, make up some of the more than 6 per cent of Christians in Myanmar, the second largest religious group after Buddhists, according to census figures.

Myanmar's border areas have been unstable since its independence from British colonial rule in 1948, hosting a dizzying array of insurgencies, local militias, and drug-running operations.

The country's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi said making peace was her priority when she took office in 2016 after decades of military rule,  but progress has been slow.

Ethnic armed groups are demanding more autonomy and control from a country in which the Burmese hold major positions of power in politics and the armed forces.

Rights groups say the army has stepped up its campaign in remote areas of Myanmar amid the Rohingya crisis, which has seen some 700,000 people flee to Bangladesh.

The US and the UN have called the military crackdown ethnic cleansing, while Myanmar denies the claims and says it was defending itself against Rohingya insurgents.

Seoul - The leaders of North and South Korea declared at a summit Friday they had a "common goal of realising, through complete denuclearisation, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula".

Exactly what that means remains unclear ahead of a much-anticipated summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump.

The White House has urged "the denuclearisation of North Korea", but the distinction is crucial -- that is an explicit reference to only one country, while the broader term is open to interpretation on both sides.

The North -- which invaded its neighbour in 1950 -- is the only one of the two Koreas to possess nuclear weapons, but the South has a security alliance with the most powerful nation on the planet.

What weapons does North Korea have?

Estimates of Pyongyang's arsenal vary.

Monitoring groups put the size of Pyongyang's sixth and last atomic blast in September at 250 kilotons -- 16 times the size of the US bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945 and the kind of yield generated by a hydrogen bomb.

Seoul's 2016 defence white paper -- the most recent available -- estimated the North had 50 kilograms of plutonium -- reportedly enough for about 10 bombs - and a "considerable" but unquantified ability to produce uranium weapons.

Last year, the Washington Post reported a US intelligence assessment that the North had up to 60 nuclear devices.

Where the North keeps its missiles is not publicly known, but it has extensive experience in tunnelling and it is believed they are stored at underground facilities scattered around the country.

They are also mobile -- it has put transporters on show at military parades.

What does the US have?

US President Donald Trump says his nuclear button is bigger than Kim's -- and it works.

According to the State Department, as of September 1, the US has a total of 1,393 deployed nuclear warheads, deliverable by land- and submarine-based missiles and heavy bombers.

It has thousands more in stockpiles and awaiting dismantlement, campaign groups say, with the Arms Control Association putting the total at 6,550 last year.

The US withdrew tactical nuclear weapons from the South in the 1990s and Seoul does not have any itself.

But the US has an unparallelled ability to project power around the world and can reach targets anywhere with conventional or nuclear munitions.

It has long-range bombers, mid-air refuelling capabilities, and a fleet of nuclear submarines constantly at sea, each armed with phenomenal destructive power.

What has Pyongyang promised?

According to Trump "they have agreed to denuclearisation". Asked what he meant by the term, he told reporters earlier this month: "It means they get rid of their nukes -- very simple."

But North Korea itself has made no explicit pledge to do so during the current rapprochement.

According to Seoul, it has offered to consider giving them up in exchange for unspecified security guarantees.

When Kim visited key backer China last month in only his first foreign trip as leader, China's state media cited him saying that the issue could be resolved if Seoul and Washington take "progressive and synchronous measures for the realisation of peace" -- implying some form of quid pro quo.

What does that imply?

Pyongyang says it needs nuclear weapons to defend itself against the United States, and interprets threats against it widely -- it has regularly condemned US-South Korean joint military exercises as preparations for invasion.

Under the 1953 Mutual Defence Treaty between South Korea and the US, Washington is duty-bound to come to its ally's aid if attacked.

In the past Pyongyang has demanded the end of the alliance and the withdrawal of US troops from the South.

The US has 28,500 troops stationed in the country to defend it from its neighbour, and Washington's nuclear arsenal is a key part of its defence capabilities -- it does not have a "no first use" policy.

What has the North promised before?

Friday's declaration was the first time the word "denuclearisation" has appeared in an inter-Korean summit communique.

There was no reference to the subject in the declaration after their first summit in Pyongyang in 2000, and seven years later they said they would work together to implement two existing agreements on "the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula".

But one of those documents, the Joint Statement of the Fourth Round of the Six-Party Talks issued in Beijing in September 2005, is unequivocal.

"The DPRK committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programmes," it said, using the North's official name.

But it carried out its first nuclear test the very next year. Another agreement followed before Pyongyang walked out of the six-party process -- which brought together the two Koreas, China, the US, Russia and Japan -- in 2009, detonating its second atomic blast months later.

WASHINGTON — France’s President Emmanuel Macron urged the United States to embrace multilateralism and warned of the perils of trade war and “extreme nationalism” in an address to Congress pushing back against Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda.

The French leader’s feisty speech to lawmakers was a dramatic twist near the end of a three-day visit that had showcased his warm personal relationship with Trump, despite the gulf between their visions of world affairs.

In one of his final appearances of the trip, he expressed pessimism about the future of the Iran nuclear deal, saying he believed Trump may end up pulling out of the agreement.

The two presidents had literally embraced each other, repeatedly talking up their much-vaunted friendship during the trip, but in his speech to Congress Macron rigorously pushed back against Trump’s trade, climate and non-proliferation policies.

“We can build the 21st century world order based on a new breed of multilateralism, based on a more effective, accountable, and result-oriented multilateralism,” Macron said, defending the rules-based world order.

Trump has threatened to tear up international trade deals, scorns the United Nations, accuses US allies of not pulling their weight, walked away from the Paris climate accord and hates dealing with transnational bodies like the European Union.

But Macron, who one day earlier had appeared hand-in-hand with Trump at the White House, received applause from the US leader’s domestic Democratic opponents by calling for a “strong multilateralism” and avoiding an isolationist approach akin to “closing the door to the world”.

He declared that France would not pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, warned against imposing trade tariffs on allies and stressed that global action on climate change is vital because there is “no Planet B”. 

‘He is perfect’

“The United States is the one who invented this multilateralism. You’re the ones now who have to help to preserve and reinvent it,” he said, in a tacit nod to Trump’s efforts to shake off international shackles.

In doing so, he flipped the script of the trip — the Trump White House’s first full state visit — which was until now dominated by intimate images of the French and US first couples planting trees, exchanging kisses and socialising. 

Trump at one point brushed Macron’s shoulder and said: “He is perfect.”

Transatlantic political reality reasserted itself Wednesday, however, as Macron — speaking in an accented but increasingly confident English — recalled the glories of past US-French cooperation.

Trump’s trade sanctions against European steel and aluminum will enter into force in coming weeks unless Trump agrees to sign a waiver. Despite his affection for Macron, he has not yet said he will do so.

Macron hit back. 

“We need a free and fair trade, for sure,” Macron said. “A commercial war opposing allies is not consistent with our mission, with our history, with our current commitments for global security.”

Trump has also warned he may not renew sanctions waivers on Iran next month, which would effectively torpedo the 2015 nuclear deal, a triumph of multilateral diplomacy.

Macron has more sympathy than perhaps any other foreign leader for Trump’s arguments that the deal falls short of sealing off Iran’s alleged quest for a nuclear weapon — which the French leader vowed before lawmakers that Tehran would “never” be allowed to possess.

But after his meetings with Trump and his speech to Congress, Macron told reporters that while he had no “inside information” on what Trump will decide, he believes the US leader “will get rid of this deal on his own, for domestic reasons”.

Together with Trump, Macron called Tuesday for a more comprehensive “new” deal with Tehran, but made clear to lawmakers that France would not be walking away from the existing accord.

“We should not abandon it without having something substantial and more substantial instead,” he told Congress.

‘Uncomfortable moments’ 

Several Democrats said they were impressed by Macron’s impassioned call for US engagement on multiple fronts, particularly on climate change and Iran.

House Democrat Adam Schiff judged that Macron had offered “more of a direct contradiction of the president than I was expecting”.

“There were more than a few uncomfortable moments on the GOP side of the aisle,” he told AFP.

But Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he didn’t feel Macron had rebuked his host. 

“He said in there that he believes in free and fair trade. That’s exactly what the president asked for,” McCarthy said.

Macron’s provocative speech came after he enjoyed an exuberant welcome from the Republican president — an elaborate state dinner, an intimate get together for four with their wives at George Washington’s Virginia estate Mount Vernon, and repeated vows of friendship.

The 40-year-old French leader spoke at length of “how deep, how strong, and how intense the relationship is between our two countries”, and marveled at the unforeseen rapport he has forged with the 71-year-old Trump.

But while the “bromance” has provided plenty of material for late night TV comedy, the key question is whether Macron can translate the privileged relationship into concrete results — be it on trade, Iran or the climate.

After his Congress speech, Macron addressed students at George Washington University, where he pledged to help “win peace” in Syria by defeating Daesh extremists in the war-scarred nation.

He also spoke of the “tremendous challenge” facing America’s younger generation as it grapples with global issues like climate change and geo-politics, but offered words of encouragement.

“At the end of the day you will be the ones to decide,” he said.

YEREVAN — Police took up positions in the centre of the Armenian capital on Wednesday as tens of thousands of people protested against the ruling elite, and the acting prime minister suggested new parliamentary elections to defuse the political crisis.

"The fight is not over!" said 21-year-old Susana Adamyan, one of the demonstrators, who was clutching a placard calling on people to take a stand as policemen looked on.

Other protesters, many of them young people, held portraits of government officials whose faces had been crossed out with red paint.

When senior members of the ruling Republican Party appeared nearby, a Reuters reporter heard people shouting at them "Go home! You're a disgrace!" 

Though protests have so far been peaceful, the sudden upheaval has threatened to destabilise Armenia, a Russian ally in a volatile region riven by its decades-long, low-level conflict with Azerbaijan.

Moscow, which has two military bases in Armenia, is closely watching events.

The crisis has seen tens of thousands of people take to the streets in anti-government protests in the last two weeks and looked to have peaked on Monday when Serzh Sargsyan, the object of protesters' fury, resigned as prime minister.

Demonstrators, led by opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan, had accused Sargsyan of manipulating the constitution to cling to power, and crowds wildly celebrated after he quit.

Pashinyan had been due to hold talks today with Karen Karapetyan, the acting prime minister, to decide on the next steps. 

Those talks were cancelled after the two sides failed to agree on an agenda, however, and Pashinyan declared late on Tuesday he was ready to become the people's prime minister.

New elections

Karapetyan suggested on Wednesday that early parliamentary elections be held to test the level of popular support for Pashinyan and his potential viability as prime minister. 

"What does 'people's candidate' mean?" Karapetyan told a news conference.

"I don't know any country where a prime minister is chosen like that. There are elections for that. If he [Pashinyan] is the people's choice, that means the people will choose him."

The economy of the landlocked South Caucasus country of 3 million would face problems if the crisis continued, Karapetyan said. 

He did not say when new elections might be held.

In a sign the unrest could already be affecting the economy, Pashinyan said protesters had blocked a customs post at the border with neighbouring Georgia. 

Separately, President Armen Sarkissian said he would start talks with political forces to try to resolve the crisis.

"I am starting consultations with parliamentary and non-parliamentary representatives to discuss the situation that has been come about in the country and a way out of it," Sarkissian said in a statement.

Although thousands of people have taken to the streets and rallied behind him, political forces in parliament who are loyal to protest leader Pashinyan hold only about 8 percent of seats.

However, the second biggest party in parliament said on Wednesday it was joining the protest movement and would encourage its supporters to take to the streets. 

LONDON — The first statue of a woman in London's Parliament Square was unveiled on Tuesday to celebrate the 100th anniversary of women winning the right to vote in Britain.

The statue of women's rights campaigner Millicent Fawcett will stand alongside those of 11 men, including Britain's wartime leader Winston Churchill, Indian independence icon Mahatma Gandhi and anti-apartheid figurehead Nelson Mandela.

Prime Minister Theresa May — Britain's second female premier after Margaret Thatcher — led the unveiling ceremony.

Were it not for Fawcett, "I would not be here today as prime minister, no female MPs would have taken their seats in parliament, none of us would have the rights we now enjoy," May said. 

"The struggle to achieve votes for women was long and arduous," and Fawcett "devoted her life to the cause".

May said Fawcett faced decades of fierce opposition as she campaigned on women's rights throughout Britain and the wider world.

"It is right and proper that, today, she takes her place at the heart of our democracy," May said, whilst warning that the fight for equality was "far from won".

The statue marks February's centenary of the Representation of the People Act, which extended the vote to around 8 million women aged over 30.

It was not until 1928 that British women gained the same voting rights as men, but the 1918 act was a major step that put the kingdom ahead of some contemporaries such as France.

Courage 

The campaign for a statue of a woman opposite the British parliament started with an online petition two years ago by feminist campaigner Caroline Criado Perez.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said: "Finally, Parliament Square is no longer a male-only zone for statues."

The statue was created by British artist Gillian Wearing, who won the 1997 Turner Prize for visual arts. She is the first woman to produce a statue for Parliament Square.

The monument shows Fawcett holding a placard reading "Courage Calls To Courage Everywhere", in tribute to a speech she gave upon the death of Suffragette Emily Wilding Davidson at the 1913 Epsom Derby horse race.

Fawcett herself was a Suffragist, part of a moderate movement that predated the more militant Suffragettes.

She is best known for her campaigns to improve women's opportunities in higher education and was a co-founder of the women-only Newnham College at Cambridge University.

She was also president of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies between 1897 and 1901.

Fawcett died in 1929 aged 82.

The 11 pre-existing statues in the square are of former British prime ministers Churchill, David Lloyd George, Viscount Palmerston, the Earl of Derby, Benjamin Disraeli, Robert Peel and George Canning; South Africa's PM Jan Smuts and president Mandela; US president Abraham Lincoln and Gandhi.

Brussels - A Belgian court on Monday sentenced Salah Abdeslam, the last surviving suspect in the Paris attacks, to 20 years in prison for terrorism-related attempted murder over a shootout with police in Brussels days before his capture in 2016.

The court passed the same sentence on Abdeslam's accomplice co-defendant Sofiane Ayari, saying there was no doubt about their involvement in extremism.

Four police officers were wounded in the gun battle during a raid on a flat in the Forest area of Brussels on March 15, 2016.

KABUL — A suicide bomber of the terror group Daesh killed at least 57 people, including women and children and wounded 119 outside a voter registration centre in the Afghan capital Kabul on Sunday in the latest attack on election preparations.

The assaults underscore growing concerns about security in the lead-up to legislative elections scheduled for October 20, which are seen as a test-run for next year’s presidential poll. 

There were anguished and angry scenes at Isteqlal Hospital where many of the victims were taken, with relatives criticising the Afghan government for failing to protect their loved ones.

“Our patience is running out. This government should take responsibility for the lives of all these innocent people lost every day,” a man called Hussain, whose cousin was wounded in the blast, told AFP.

“Nobody will go to vote anymore.”

The health ministry gave the latest toll for the attack, which was claimed by Daesh via its propaganda arm Amaq. 

The interior ministry had earlier said 48 people were killed and 112 wounded. Its spokesman was not immediately available to comment on the new toll. 

“They are civilians, including women and children,” Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said earlier.

The centre in a heavily Shiite-populated neighbourhood in the west of the city was also being used by people to register for national identification certificates, which they need in order to sign up to vote.

“I found myself covered in blood, with dead people — women and children — around me,” said Ali Rasuli, who had been standing in a queue outside the centre when he saw a “fireball” in front of him. He was taken to a hospital with leg and abdominal wounds. 

Sheets of paper and passport-sized photos lay scattered amid shattered glass and pools of blood on the street near badly damaged cars — grim evidence of the force of the blast.

“This senseless violence shows the cowardice and inhumanity of the enemies of democracy and peace in Afghanistan,” US Ambassador John Bass wrote on Twitter. NATO and the United Nations also condemned the bombing. 

The last major attack in Kabul was on March 21 when an Daesh suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd celebrating the Persian New Year holiday and killed at least 33 people. 

Voter security 

Ariana TV showed angry crowds shouting “Death to the government!” and “Death to the Taliban!” 

A wounded man in a hospital bed wept as he told the network: “I don’t know where my daughters are. God damn the attackers!” 

A witness to the attack named Akbar told Tolo TV: “Now we know the government cannot provide us security: we have to get armed and protect ourselves.”

Elsewhere, a roadside explosion in the northern province of Baghlan on Sunday killed six people, including three women and two children. 

President Ashraf Ghani condemned both attacks as “heinous”.

Afghanistan began registering voters on April 14 for the long-delayed legislative elections.

Officials have acknowledged that security is a major concern because the Taliban and other militant groups control or contest large swathes of the country. 

Afghan police and troops have been tasked with protecting polling centres, even as they struggle to get the upper hand against insurgents on the battlefield.

Militants on Friday launched rockets at a voter registration centre in the northwestern province of Badghis, killing a police officer and wounding another person.

Officials blamed the Taliban for the attack.

On Tuesday, gunmen attacked a voter registration centre in the central province of Ghor, kidnapping three election workers and two policemen.

Taliban militants released the five on Thursday.

Over the next two months, authorities hope to register up to 14 million adults at more than 7,000 polling centres for the parliamentary and district council elections.

Officials have been pushing people to register amid fears a low turnout will undermine the credibility of the polls. 

Since the Persian New Year attack, a tense calm had permeated the Afghan capital as people brace for the Taliban’s launch of its customary spring offensive.

The Taliban are under pressure to take up Ghani’s peace offer made in February, but so far the group has given only a muted response.

Some Western and Afghan officials expect 2018 to be a particularly bloody year.

General John Nicholson, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, told Tolo TV last month that he expected the Taliban to carry out more suicide attacks this fighting season.

LONDON — Queen Elizabeth II marked her 92nd birthday on Saturday with traditional gun salutes and a Commonwealth-themed charity concert featuring Tom Jones, Kylie and Shaggy.

Horse-drawn guns fired 41 times in Hyde Park and 62 times at the Tower of London, while at Windsor Castle, the band played "Happy Birthday" during the changing of the guard.

In the evening, the monarch and her family were due to attend a concert with performers from around the Commonwealth, the 53-nation grouping which held its summit in London this week.

Australia's Kylie, Canadian pop chart-topper Shawn Mendes, South African all-male choir Ladysmith Black Mambazo and US-Jamaican reggae star Shaggy were to join British stars including Jones, Craig David and Sting.

The queen usually celebrates her birthday in private, saving the pomp for her official birthday in June.

The concert at the Royal Albert Hall will raise money for a new youth charity, The Queen's Commonwealth Trust.

The monarch's grandson Prince Harry, who will marry US actress Meghan Markle at Windsor on May 19, is the trust's new president and was due to give a speech at the concert.

The queen has been the symbolic head of the Commonwealth since her father king George VI's death in 1952, but its leaders agreed on Friday that her son and heir Prince Charles should succeed her. 

The summit was overshadowed by a row over Britain's treatment of Caribbean immigrants.

Seoul - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he would halt nuclear tests and intercontinental missile launches, in a Saturday announcement welcomed by US President Donald Trump ahead of a much-anticipated summit between the two men.

Pyongyang's declaration, long sought by Washington, will be seen as a crucial step in the fast diplomatic dance on and around the Korean peninsula.

It comes less than a week before the North Korean leader meets South Korean President Moon Jae-in for a summit in the Demilitarised Zone that divides the peninsula, ahead of the eagerly-awaited encounter with Trump himself.

But Kim gave no indication Pyongyang might be willing to give up its nuclear weapons, or the missiles with which it can reach the mainland United States.

The North had successfully developed its arsenal, including miniaturising warheads to fit them on to missiles, Kim said, and so "no nuclear test and intermediate-range and inter-continental ballistic rocket test-fire are necessary for the DPRK now".

As such the North's nuclear testing site was no longer needed, he told the central committee of the ruling Workers' Party, according to the official KCNA news agency.

The party decided that nuclear blasts and ICBM launches will cease as of Saturday -- the North has not carried any out since November -- and the atomic test site at Punggye-ri will be dismantled to "transparently guarantee" the end of testing.

Within minutes of the report being issued, Trump tweeted: "This is very good news for North Korea and the World -- big progress! Look forward to our Summit."

Seoul too welcomed the announcement, calling it "meaningful progress" towards the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

But Kim offered no sign he might be willing to give up what he called the North's "treasured sword", saying its possession of nuclear weapons was "the firm guarantee by which our descendants can enjoy the most dignified and happiest life in the world".

Pyongyang has made rapid technological progress in its weapons programmes under Kim, which has seen it subjected to increasingly strict sanctions by the UN Security Council, the United States, the European Union, South Korea and others.

Last year it carried out its sixth nuclear blast, by far its most powerful to date, while Kim and Trump traded threats of war and personal insults as tensions ramped up.

Even when there was an extended pause in testing, US officials said that it could not be interpreted as a halt without an explicit statement from Pyongyang.

South Korean envoys have previously cited Kim as promising no more tests, but Saturday's news is the first such announcement directly by Pyongyang.

- 'Devil in the details' -

Analysts cautioned that the declaration was promising but limited.

"Certainly this is a positive development," said Daniel Pinkston of Troy University. "It's a necessary but not sufficient step in North Korea returning to its past non-proliferation commitments."

And Christopher Green of the International Crisis Group added on Twitter: "I don't see how North Korean statement constitutes a step toward denuclearisation. It is a moratorium on testing, but recommits North Korea to nuclear weapons status."

Japan -- which has seen missiles fly over its territory -- gave a mixed response, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe offering a cautious welcome but his defence minister saying North Korea did not mention the short- or medium-range missiles that put Tokyo within reach.

Beijing said it believed the move would "help to promote the process of denuclearisation and attempts to find a political settlement" on the peninsula.

The EU welcomed Kim's announcement as "a positive, long sought-after step" on the path to complete denuclearisation.

The formal declaration of an end to testing comes after Kim reiterated the North's nuclear status in his New Year speech and said he had a nuclear button on his desk -- prompting Trump to tweet that he had a bigger one of his own.

Events have moved rapidly since then, catalysed by the Winter Olympics in the South, and Seoul is now pushing for a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War, raising hopes that a settlement can finally be reached on the peninsula.

But there is a long way to go and Moon himself acknowledged this week that the "devil is in the details".

- 'Fresh climate of detente' -

The US is seeking the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation of the North, while according to Moon, Pyongyang wants security guarantees, potentially leaving much space for disagreement.

The North has long demanded the withdrawal of US troops from the peninsula and an end to its nuclear umbrella over South Korea, something unthinkable in Washington.

But Kim told the Workers' Party meeting: "A fresh climate of detente and peace is being created on the Korean peninsula and the region and dramatic changes are being made in the international political landscape."

For years, the impoverished North has pursued a "byungjin" policy of "simultaneous development" of both the military and the economy.

But the leader said that as it was now a powerful state, "the whole party and country" should concentrate on "socialist economic construction".

Several factors have driven the Korean rapprochement, including the North feeling that it can now negotiate from a position of strength, concern about the belligerence of the Trump administration, and the looming impact of sanctions.