Pyongyang preparing to launch missile or rocket
WASHINGTON: North Korea could be preparing to launch a missile or rocket in the near future, according to satellite images of activity in the country, US radio network NPR reported, while the country’s state media said the world is blaming the US for ending the Hanoi summit without an agreement.
The images were taken on February 22 at the Sanumdong facility near Pyongyang, where North Korea has assembled some of its intercontinental ballistic missiles and satellitelaunching rockets, NPR reported.
They show trucks and cars parked nearby, while rail cars sit in a yard, where two cranes are erected, it said. The pictures were taken by Digital Globe and shared exclusively with NPR.
“When you put all that together, that’s really what it looks like when the North Koreans are in the process of building a rocket,” Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Project at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, told NPR.
Lewis said it was impossible to know if North Korea is preparing a military missile or a space rocket.
The release of the images comes after US President Donald Trump abruptly ended a summit with Kim Jong Un in Vietnam late last month after the US president said the North Korean leader asked for all US sanctions to be lifted in exchange for dismantling the country’s main nuclear complex.
The failed talks with Trump raised new questions about Kim’s strategy for coping with the international sanctions squeezing his country.
The North Korean leader said his party’s top priority is to improve the economy and liveli- hood of the people, Korea Central News Agency reported, citing his message to the party workers’ convention, held on March 6 for the first time in 18 years.
“The public at home and abroad that had hoped for success and good results from the summit in Hanoi are feeling regretful, blaming the US for the summit that ended without an agreement,” KCNA reported, citing a commentary in the Rodong Sinmun newspaper.