So much for Kim’s promise of peace!
North Korea is STILL building new missiles, say US agents
NORTH Korea is secretly building new missiles despite promising to disarm, according to United States intelligence sources.
Satellite imagery suggests construction has been stepped up at a factory making missiles capable of reaching the US.
It makes a mockery of Donald Trump’s boast in June after his historic summit with Kim Jongun that North Korea is ‘no longer a nuclear threat’.
When they met in Singapore, the two leaders shook hands on a deal to ‘denuclearise’ the Korean peninsula.
But yesterday the Washington Post said satellite photos taken in recent weeks indicated work on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) was under way at the Sanumdong facility just north of the capital, Pyongyang.
Last month, images showed ongoing operations at the regime’s uranium enrichment plant in Yongbyon, 90 kilometres further north. One image taken on July 7 shows a brightred trailer in a loading area, identical to those used by North Korea in the past to transport ICBMs.
US analysts matched satellite photos with a 2017 propaganda video released by Kim Jong-un.
The video showing off Kim’s Hwasong-14 missile was in a hanger with 12 beams on one side and 22 skylights.
Using satellite photos, analysts identified the hanger building by comparing beams and skylights on the exterior.
Jeffrey Lewis, of the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies, said: ‘The missile facility is not dead by any stretch of the imagination. It’s active. We see shipping containers and vehicles coming and going. This is a facility where they build ICBMs and spacelaunch vehicles.’
At the June summit with Kim, the US President said the process of ‘total denuclearisation ... has already started’. However, more than a dozen of Mr Trump’s own spies have broken rank to warn that the US president was being ‘deceived’ by Kim as the regime quietly upped production in recent months while conducting diplomatic talks.
In Kim’s own carefully worded pledge, he vaguely promised to ‘work toward’ denuclearisation.
US intelligence agents say senior North Korean officials have discussed intentions to deceive Washington about the number of nuclear warheads and missiles they have, as well as the types and numbers of facilities.
Their strategy includes ‘asserting that they have fully denuclearised by declaring and disposing of 20 warheads while retaining dozens more’, the Washington Post reported.
Ken Gause, a North Korea expert at the US Centre for Naval Analysis, said: ‘The North Koreans never agreed to give up their nuclear programme. Regime survival and perpetuation of Kim family rule are Kim’s guiding principles.’
Satellite images at the Yongbyon uranium enrichment site showed work was expanding rapidly, analysts warned, with evidence of activity at the cooling units and of vehicles transporting materials. US intelligence sources said: ‘There’s no evidence they are decreasing stockpiles, or that they have stopped production.’
It follows accusations from Kim’s regime last month that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made ‘gangster-like’ demands for denuclearisation.