ABSTRACT
On June 12, 2018, former US President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un created history by concluding a landmark summit, as the sitting heads of adversarial states met for the first time. Four months later, the North Korean leader further expressed his willingness for a second summit with President Trump in his New Year’s speech. For the newly ushered rapprochement between the two countries, continuous meetings of the leadership on both sides were deemed as crucial, especially for the promise of denuclearisation taken forward at the Singapore Summit. On May 4, 2019, North Korea “fired a new type of solid-fuel short range ballistic missile and tested two separate multiple rocket launch systems” after the breakdown of the second summit between the two at Hanoi, but it continued with its moratorium on testing with regard to International Ballistic Missile capabilities.
