N. Korea rebuilding part of missile site
WASHINGTON: North Korea has restored part of a rocket test site it began to dismantle after pledging to do so in a first summit with United States President Donald Trump last year, while Trump’s national security adviser warned that new sanctions could be introduced if Pyongyang did not scrap its nuclear weapons programme.
South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency and two US think tanks on Tuesday said work was under way at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station in Tongchang-ri, even as Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at a second summit in Hanoi last week.
That summit broke down over differences on how far North Korea was willing to limit its nuclear programme and the degree of US willingness to ease sanctions.
Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, told Fox Business Network on Tuesday that following the Hanoi summit, Washington would see if Pyongyang was committed to giving up its “nuclear weapons programme and everything associated with it”.
“If they’re not willing to do it, then I think President Trump has been very clear... they’re not going to get relief from the crushing economic sanctions that have been imposed on them and we’ll look at ramping those sanctions up.”
Satellite images seen by 38 North, a Washington-based North Korea project, showed that structures on the Sohae launch pad had been rebuilt sometime between Feb 16 and March 2, said Jenny Town, managing editor at the project and an analyst at the Stimson Center think tank.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies released a report, citing satellite imagery, that concluded North Korea is “pursuing a rapid rebuilding”.