Trump favors diplomatic gains, but North Korea continues to build missiles

WASHINGTON – President Trump has always praised the results of his North Korean diplomacy, insisting since his June summit with Kim Jong-un that Pyongyang is no longer a nuclear threat and that his attempts to missiles have stopped. North Korea has continued its work on missile and weapons programs since the leaders' meeting, according to US officials, including manufacturing new intercontinental ballistic missiles at a factory near Pyongyang. , the capital, according to an official of the Department of Defense. And North Korea continues to produce nuclear fuel, said US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Senators last week.

Kim has little interest in abandoning the North's nuclear arsenal or pushing back its progress on ICBM, say experts who have long studied the North Korean government and its missile programs. Northern armament work, including in a facility that creates ICBMs, continued in the weeks following the Trump-Kim summit, said Jeffrey Lewis, an expert on Arm Control at the Institute of International Studies at Middlebury in Monterey, California.

US officials said they did not see an increase in work in recent weeks, but they found the programs were growing at the same pace as in previous months. In particular, work on one to two ICBM in Sanumdong, a missile manufacturing plant on the outskirts of Pyongyang, is consistent with the activity of the facility before the summit, said the head of the department of defense. Work on the new missiles has been reported for the first time by the Washington Post.

Some Trump administration officials were frustrated that North Korea is continuing its arms work, considering it a violation of the agreement between Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump [19659002] But other US officials and outside experts have said that he should have expected North Korea to continue working on its missile facilities because has not explicitly agreed to cease the manufacture of missiles or nuclear fuel. 19659002] "They enlarge everything," Lewis said. "To be fair, they never said that they agreed to give up their nuclear weapons." South Koreans said the North Koreans have agreed to abandon their nuclear weapons. Trump said that they agreed to give them up, but they never said it. "

The great investment of the North in its nuclear program over the last few years has made it unlikely that it will ever happen again. it began a sudden change of pace, Mr. Lewis said, since Mr. Kim's arrival in power, North Korea's investments in missile technology and nuclear weapons have steadily increased.

Trump played the results of his meeting with Mr. Kim, posting on Twitter after: "There is no longer any nuclear threat from North Korea." Since then, Mr. Trump has says that North Korea has made progress in the promises that Mr. Kim made to him.

But diplomacy between the two nations has stopped. A few weeks after the summit meeting, North Korea accused the United States of making "gangster-like" claims [1965/90]. Pompeo should try to consolidate this relationship by continuing his diplomatic work with North Korea this week at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Singapore. State Department officials said the denuclearization will be discussed in a multinational framework, but will not say whether Mr. Pompeo and North Korean officials would meet directly for talks.

Testifying before the Senate last week, Mr. Pompeo said that Yet Mr. Pompeo echoed Mr. Trump, extolling the lack of missile testing in North Korea and pointing to the dismantling of 39, a missile test center as evidence of Mr. Kim. commitment. According to Mr. Pompeo, the work of closing the engine test plant is far from being completed with North Korea.

Democrats challenged Mr. Pompeo, saying that Pyongyang had only been rid of obsolete facility. And outside experts have challenged the insistence of Mr. Trump and Mr. Pompeo that diplomacy is on the right track and that the threat of conflict is greatly reduced.

The foreign policy of the Trump administration is repeatedly contrary to the president's statements. ] Million. Trump said that he won new spending concessions from European leaders in July, only to have allies against them that they made no further promises. And months after being removed from the Iranian nuclear deal, Mr Trump said he would meet Iranian leaders without preconditions. A few hours later, however, Mr. Pompeo pointed out several. But the proposal was in any case rejected by Iran

. On Russia, the president insisted that he pursued tough policies, although a Senate vote that pushed for additional economic sanctions forced the hand of the administration. Mr Trump has repeatedly changed his stance on his view of Russia's interference in US democratic institutions, even though intelligence agencies continue to claim that Moscow continues to maintain its position. to interfere

. new revelations have sowed further doubts about the Trump administration 's progress in destroying the country' s nuclear weapons

. Lewis said his organization has reviewed 40 images of Sanumdong's installation since January. They show that work is continuing at the facility that has been used to develop ICBMs owned by North Korea that have the ability to hit the United States.

"They continue to work," Lewis said. "You can not see in the building, but it is a missile facility, and shipping containers continue to appear."

Bruce Klingner, senior researcher at the Heritage Foundation, said that "the spirit of the summit".

However, noted Klingner, North Korea agreed at the summit meeting to work on denuclearization, a weaker sentence than previous agreements involving Washington and Pyongyang. The commercial satellite photographs showed that work on the nuclear and missile sites is continuing and demonstrated Pyongyang's determination, for the time being, to maintain its nuclear program, he said. preparing to abandon these programs, "said Klingner.

Experts believe that North Korea, at least for the moment, has little intention of abandoning its nuclear weapons Instead, he hopes to reach an agreement allowing him to retain his nuclear arsenal and ICBM, but to put an end to high-profile tests or other public threats.

Mr. Pompeo told legislators that he was "very confident." North Koreans understand our definition of denuclearization "and that Pyongyang had agreed to denuclearize.

While the Trump administration has defined the term "denuclearization" as the elimination of the nuclear arsenal, North Korea means something very different. . When North Korean officials talk about denuclearization, they want to reduce the role of nuclear weapons, he says.

"They want Israel's agreement: they will talk less about them, and we pretend that they do not exist," Lewis said. Israel is not a world-declared nuclear power, and the government does not discuss its capabilities, but its weapons are not a secret.