Kim’s nuke backflip

Report North Korean leader is rebuilding missile launch site

SOUTH Korean intelligence agencies have detected signs that North Korea is restoring part of a missile launch site it began to dismantle after the first summit with US President Donald Trump last year.

South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency quoted politicians briefed by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service as saying the work is taking place at the Tongchang-ri launch site and involves replacing a roof and a door at the facility.

The Yonhap report did not say when the work was detected, but news of it comes days after a second summit on denuclearisation between Mr Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un broke down last week over differences on how far North Korea was willing to limit its nuclear program and US willingness to ease sanctions on the country.

Mr Trump told a news conference after an unprecedented first summit with Mr Kim on June 12 in Singapore that the North Korean leader had promised that a major missile engine testing site would be destroyed very soon.

Mr Trump did not identify the site, but a US official subsequently told Reuters it was the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground, which is located at Tongchang-ri.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Yonhap report.

Mr Kim also pledged at a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in September to close Sohae and allow international experts to observe the dismantling of the missile engine-testing site and a launch pad.

Signs that North Korea had begun acting on its pledge to Mr Trump were detected in July, when satellite images indicated work had begun at Sohae to dismantle a building used to assemble space-launch vehicles and a nearby rocket engine test stand.

But later images showed that work had halted.