North Korean missile bases ‘still expanding’
NEW satellite images have revealed that North Korea has significantly expanded a key long-range missile base located in a remote mountainous area, despite continuing talks with the US over the country’s nuclear disarmament.
The images, obtained by CNN, offer evidence that the Yeongjeo-dong missile base and a nearby, previously unreported, site remain active and have been continually upgraded, highlighting the gulf between Pyongyang and Washington over denuclearisation.
Yeongjeo-dong has long been known to US intelligence agencies, but researchers at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California, told CNN the construction at a new facility at Hoejung-ri, seven miles away, had not previously been publicly identified.
“Construction on the previously unidentified site has continued even after the Singapore summit,” said the Institute’s Jeffrey Lewis,
‘Whatever Kim says, Pyongyang continues to deploy nuclear missiles’
referring to talks in June between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump. “Whatever Kim says about his desire for denuclearisation, North Korea continues to produce and deploy nuclear armed missiles.”
The bases are believed to serve as shelters for mobile missile launchers and would be able to store the country’s newest long-range missiles, including those capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
The North officially suspended its nuclear and missile tests before the June summit, and missile production and deployment does not technically violate any agreement between Pyongyang and the US and South Korea. However, ongoing activity fuels US criticism that North Korea is dragging its heels over denuclearisation.
John Bolton, the US national security adviser, told The Wall Street Journal this week that Mr Trump believes he should hold a second summit with Kim early next year as the North Koreans “have not lived up to the commitments” of the summit.
The Singapore summit produced a vaguely worded agreement for North Korea to “work toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula”.