North Korea could hand over ICBMs to China in exchange for lifting of sanctions

North Korea may be ready to offer to turn its intercontinental ballistic missiles over to Chinese custody as an interim measure in return for concessions from the international community on the sanctions that are crippling the regime of Kim Jong-un.

The proposal would fall short of Washington’s demands for complete, verifiable and irreversible destruction of the North’s nuclear capabilities, but removing the missiles that would be needed to deliver them to targets in North America could be seen in the US as an acceptable step in the right direction.

At present, Pyongyang and Washington remain at odds over the North’s nuclear weapons, with representatives of Mr Kim and US President Donald Trump attempting to iron out their differences ahead of a second summit between the two leaders that is due to take place next month.

The Trump administration has been demanding the complete elimination of the North’s nuclear capabilities, although there have been suggestions that position may be wavering in the face of Pyongyang’s defiance.

Mr Kim is calling for his country to be rewarded for each step that it takes towards denuclearisation and claims that a halt to testing of nuclear warheads and missiles should be recognised through the easing of sanctions.

John Bolton, Mr Trump’s national security adviser, proposed in May last year that the North’s nuclear weapons could be shipped to the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge nuclear research laboratory, in Tennessee.

Pyongyang has not accepted that offer, although with sanctions increasingly biting, it is being suggested that Mr Kim may be considering other options that could be perceived as a concession to the international community’s demands at the same time as allowing him to save face.

“I guess transferring some ICBMs to China could be one of the cards that Kim Jong-un holds to have another round of summit [talks] with Donald Trump”, Lee Sang-soo, a research fellow at the Institute for Security and Development in Sweden, told Radio Free Asia.

Given China’s proximity, Mr Lee suggested it would be relatively straightforward for North Korea to entrust its ICBM arsenal to Beijing.

Daniel Pinkston, a professor of international relations at the Seoul campus of Troy University, agreed that moving the weapons over the border, “could serve as an interim step to get them out of North Korea and into the custody of a third party”.

He cautioned, however, that handing over all its ICBMs - and, potentially as a result of further measures towards denculearisation, the North’s warheads - would remove the strategic advantage that Pyongyang has developed by deploying nuclear weapons. And that may be a step too far for Mr Kim.

“Once these weapons are out of the country, they are out of Pyongyang’s control and they lose their deterrent capability," he told The Telegraph. “And they will feel that there are no guarantees that they will get them back again.

“Also, giving their weapons to another country potentially allows scientists from that country to examine the weapons and determine their capabilities, which the North will be keen to avoid”, he added.