Monitor says North Korea is improving nuclear facility despite Trump-Kim summit

North Korea is rapidly improving its nuclear research facility, a monitor said yesterday, despite declaring a commitment to denuclearisation of the peninsula at the Singapore summit.

The North’s leader, Kim Jongun promised to “work towards” the goal at the historic summit with US President Donald Trump in the city-state this month. But the Singapore meeting failed to clearly define denuclearisation or produce a specific timeline for dismantling the North’s atomic arsenal.

Mr Trump claimed the process would start quickly, saying last week that “it will be a total denuclearisation, which is already taking place”.

But recent satellite imagery showed that not only were operations continuing at the North’s main Yongbyon nuclear site, it was also carrying out infrastructure works, said the respected 38 North website.

“Commercial satellite imagery from June 21 indicates that improvements to the infrastructure at ... Yongbyon NuclearScientific Research Centre are continuing at a rapid pace,” it said.

It noted “continued operations” at the North’s uranium enrichment plant and several new installations at the site – including an engineering office and a driveway to a building housing a nuclear reactor.

But continued operations at the site “should not be seen as having any relationship with North Korea’s pledge to denuclearise”, it said.

Nuclear officials could be “expected to proceed with business as usual until specific orders are issued from Pyongyang”, it said.

The North last month blew up its aged but only nuclear test site at Punggye-ri – where it had staged six atomic tests – in a show of goodwill before the summit. Pyongyang has kept its counsel on the denuclearisation issue since the meeting, although state media has dialled down propaganda against the US, long dubbed the “imperialist enemy”.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been pushing for more follow-up talks to flesh out details over denuclearisation, but no date has been set for when they would take place.