‘Secret North Korean missile site found’

Days after the White House announced plans for a second nuclear summit between the United States and North Korea, a new thinktank report has identified a secret North Korean ballistic missile base about 257km northwest of Seoul that is reportedly the headquarters of the country’s strategic missile force.

The report, released by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said the base is one of about 20 undeclared missile operating bases, part of North Korea’s ongoing ballistic missile programme. Researchers said the latest report provides more evidence that North Korea is not dismantling its weapons facilities.

“While diplomacy is critical, and should be the primary way to resolve the North Korean nuclear problem, any future agreement must take account of all of the operational missile base facilities that are a threat to US and South Korean security,” the report said. “North Korea is not supposed to have these ballistic missile bases,” said Victor Cha, one of the authors. “And of course they have them and have not disclosed them.”

After US President Donald Trump’s historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last year, Trump wrote on Twitter that there was “no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.” The White House has announced a second summit in February.

“North Korea ‘basically wants to trade away things they won’t do in the future, or to give up things from the past they don’t need anymore, while not negotiating over things like this, their actual capabilities,” said Cha, a former National Security Council official.

Of the 20 or so undeclared missile bases, CSIS researchers have located 13.

The Sino-ri base served as one of the first bases for the country’s most widely deployed ballistic missile, the Nodong medium-range ballistic missile. The base “has fulfilled broader missions” as an operational test and development site and training facility subordinate to the “Strategic Force of the Korean People’s Army,” the report said. The KPA Strategic Force is responsible for all ballistic missile tests.