Trump warns N. Korea over ‘rebuilding’ rocket site

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said he’d be “very, very disappointed” with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un if reports that work is underway to rebuild a long-range rocket site are confirmed.

Speaking to reporters, Trump said “it’s too early to see” if the information about work at the North Korean site is true.

Warning he’d be disappointed, he added: “I don’t think I will be, but we’ll see what happens.”

Trump and Kim met last week in Vietnam to negotiate ridding the North of its nuclear arsenal, but the meet ended early with no progress.

Researchers say that rebuilding of the facility has been underway since the summit and may have started before the Vietnam meeting.

“This facility had been dormant since August 2018, indicating the current activity is deliberate and purposeful,” said researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Researchers said that the activity may be intended to “demonstrate resolve in the face of US rejection” of the North’s request for an easing of sanctions in return for some dismantlement of nuclear weapons infrastructure.

Kim agreed to shutter the Sohae missile-testing site at a summit with the South’s President Moon Jae-in in Pyongyang as part of confidencebuilding measures, and satellite pictures in August suggested workers were already dismantling an engine test stand at the facility.

But CSIS said building activity is now “evident” at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station, from where Pyongyang launched satellites in 2012 and 2016.

North Korea was later banned by the UN security council from carrying out the space launches, as some of its technology was similar to that used for intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs.