North Korea continues to build on missile program
US intelligence officials warn that despite talks with the US, dictator Kim continues to upgrade.
Image: Reuters
US President Donald Trump has After the summit with North Korea's dictator Kim Jong-un proclaimed the end of North Korea's nuclear threat. New findings of the US intelligence agencies prove otherwise.
The satellite images show lively activity on the site of the large research facility Sanumdong on the outskirts of Pyongyang. "We see them going to work as before," one intelligence official interprets the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency's photographs to the Washington Post. Together with other findings of the US services, these are clear evidence of work on other long-range missiles.
"Could reach US coastline"
In Sanumdong, the North Koreans had built two liquid-fuel-propelled Hwasong-15 intercontinental rockets. Independent US badysts such as Joel Witt of the organization North 38 say the tests of these missiles have shown that they could reach destinations on the East Coast of the United States. "They've got the engines, but not the other hi-tech challenges."
Experts suggest that North Korea is working on a problem in Sanumdong of not burning up a warhead mounted on the long-range missile when it re-enters the atmosphere. It is suspicious that the images show the same semi-trailers North Korea used to transport its intercontinental rockets in the past.
The revelations come weeks after US President Trump claimed that North Korea was due to his agreement with dictator Kim Jong-un at the Singapore Summit "no longer a nuclear threat."
Indeed, Kim had just signed a very general letter of intent, in which observers saw no more than a starting point for further negotiations. "They have not given up their nuclear program," says Ken Gause of the Center for Naval Analysis. Starting from something else had been "naive" from the beginning.
"Let's not fool you"
This is also suggested by other US intelligence findings that have leaked to the US media since the summit. According to officials from the regime in Pyongyang, they have been discussing ways of deceiving the US on the actual number of its warheads and missiles and inspectors.
Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo, who was in Singapore with Trump, admitted at a Senate hearing last week that North Korea "continues the production of fissile material". Pompeo responded angrily to the demand as to whether Kim had deceived the President: "We are not being misled."
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