Newly Revealed North Korean missile bases question Trump summit's value with Kim Jong Un

On Monday, a new report from a Washington think tank identified more than a dozen hidden bases in North Korea that could be used to disperse mobile ballistic missile launchers in the event of a conflict.

Are these bases evidence that North Korea is cheating the deal reached in June when President Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore? Analysts say the answer is no – although there are many warnings.

"Kim has not kept any promise," said Jeffrey Lewis, nonproliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterrey. "He sticks to one of them: mass production of nuclear weapons."

Joseph Bermudez, Victor Cha and Lisa Collins of the Center for Strategic and International Studies used satellite imagery and interviews with North Korean defectors and government officials to identify 13 missile bases. They say that there are seven other bases that remain hidden.

The bases, which are located on a "mountainous terrain, often spread out in narrow and narrow valleys", could be used to deploy mobile missile launchers, which would be extremely difficult for other countries to track and stop before missiles. to be fired.

Analysts focused on the Sakkanmol missile base, located just 84 kilometers from Seoul. "Since November 2018, the base has been active and relatively well maintained by North Korean standards," the report says.

North Korea has significantly improved its missile technology through provocative tests launched last year. Western experts have finally concluded that Pyongyang now has the ability to strike most of the United States, although it remains to be determined whether it could produce a nuclear weapon small enough to be placed on a missile.

After a tense 2017, diplomacy caused a thaw earlier this year. North Korea has announced that it will end its weapons testing and that it will dismantle a nuclear test site and a satellite launch facility expected to play a role in the program. ballistic missiles of the country. When Kim met with Trump in Singapore over the summer, the two leaders agreed to set up a "lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean peninsula" and to "work towards the complete denuclearization" of the peninsula .

The day after the summit, Trump wrote on Twitter that there was "This is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea". In public, he has largely retained this positive view of the negotiations. "We are in no hurry," he told reporters Wednesday, questioned about the prospect of a second summit with Kim, adding that the rockets and missiles "stopped".

The report is the latest proof that, although North Korea has effectively stopped its missile tests, it is far from dismantling its weapons facilities. In fact, there appears to be an increase in its stock: US intelligence information from the summer has revealed that North Korea has begun to produce new missiles in a factory, and the secretary of the North American intelligence agency has said that he has not been able to do so. State Mike Pompeo acknowledged during a Senate testimony that Pyongyang "continues to produce fissile material."

Duyeon Kim, deputy researcher at the Center for a New American Security, said that while these developments violate US Security Council resolutions, they do not constitute a violation of the Kim-Trump deal. "North Korea has not kept its promises with Trump because no nuclear agreement has yet been signed with Washington," she said.

"I realize I'm a record, but North Korea has never offered to give up its nuclear weapons," said non-proliferation expert Lewis. "What North Korea has proposed is the beginning of a process that could lead to a result like this."

The State Department did not specify whether it considered the base as a violation of agreements with the United States. "President Trump made it clear that if President Kim were to live up to his commitments – including completed the denuclearization and elimination of ballistic missile programs – a much brighter future for North Korea and its inhabitants, "said a spokesman in a statement.

Several recent signs indicate that diplomatic efforts between the United States and North Korea have become bogged down. Kim Yong Chol, the Pompeo and Pyongyang nuclear negotiator, was unexpectedly postponed just days after a North Korean media published a comment suggesting that missile testing could resume if negotiations were not progressing.

Analysts have long believed that North Korea has undeclared or hidden facilities in its missile program, which has made verification and inspection-related issues an essential part of the working-level discussions between the United States and the United States. United States and North Korea. Pyongyang may have wanted to see the missile sites, suggested David Maxwell, researcher at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, to maintain the pressure during negotiations.

Kim Sung-han, Dean of the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Korea and former Deputy Foreign Minister of South Korea, said the SCRS report showed the need for a " Verifiable statement "Nuclear capabilities and missiles of North Korea. negotiations.

However, he added, the report could also make the current stalemate between Washington and Pyongyang "longer than expected".

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