North Korea developing ballistic missiles at 16 secret sites - report

Satellite images analyzed by Washington think tank suggest rogue regime brazenly defying West, even as it negotiates with US

North Korea has been quietly developing its ballistic missile program at 16 covert military bases, even as the totalitarian state tempers its fiery rhetoric against the West and engages in denuclearization talks with the United States, according to an analysis of satellite images by a Washington-based think tank.

The Beyond Parallel program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies identified the bases in a Monday report, signaling that Pyongyang has been misleading the West about its intentions to dismantle its missile program, according to The New York Times.

“It looks like they’re trying to maximize their capabilities,” analyst Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., who co-authored the report, told the US paper. “Any missile at these bases can take a nuclear warhead.”

In a statement to The Times, the State Department said: “President Trump has made clear that should Chairman Kim follow through on his commitments, including complete denuclearization and the elimination of ballistic missile programs, a much brighter future lies ahead for North Korea and its people.”

In this undated image distributed on Sunday, September 3, 2017, by the North Korean government, shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at an undisclosed location. North Korea’s state media on Sunday, Sept 3, 2017, said Kim inspected the loading of a hydrogen bomb into a new intercontinental ballistic missile (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

In July, The Washington Post said US intelligence agencies have found that North Korea is building new missiles, based on satellite photographs taken at the time and other new evidence. Just weeks after a high-stakes summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Pyongyang appeared to be developing at least one or two liquid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missiles, the Post said, citing officials familiar with the intelligence.

A month later, experts said North Korea had stopped dismantling a different rocket test site, also based on satellite photographs taken at the time and other sources.

Following the June Singapore summit between the two leaders, the American president had declared that Pyongyang was “no longer a Nuclear Threat,” and touted his own diplomatic achievements.

But Kim did not publicly promise to end work at the country’s nuclear and missile facilities, instead speaking of eventual denuclearization.

People watch a TV at a train station in Seoul on September 3, 2017, showing a news broadcast about North Korea’s latest possible nuclear test. (AFP Photo/Ed Jones)

Recently, North Korea has demanded that the United States end its tough economic sanctions now that it is negotiating with Trump over its nuclear program. State-run media, in a statement two weeks ago, warned that North Korea was “seriously” considering a return to a guiding policy of building nuclear weapons and said that sanctions were “incompatible” with improving relations with Washington.

But the Trump administration says that sanctions must remain as pressure until a final accord, rejecting an incremental approach favored by ally South Korea as well as calls to end sanctions by China and Russia.

Trump said last Wednesday he hoped to meet again early next year with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un but insisted he was in “no rush” after top-level preparatory talks were abruptly postponed.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had been set to meet a top North Korean official on Thursday in New York to prepare a second summit and work on a potentially landmark deal on ending the totalitarian state’s nuclear program.

But North Korea has stepped up its demands for an easing of US sanctions and the State Department, without offering a reason, said late Tuesday that Pompeo’s meeting was off.

In this file photo taken on June 11, 2018 North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un (R) walks with US President Donald Trump (L) during a break in talks at their historic US-North Korea summit, at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore. Trump on September 19, 2018 said US relations with North Korea are making “tremendous progress” from the days before his presidency when the two countries appeared close to “going to war.” AFP PHOTO / SAUL LOEB)

Trump, in a free-wheeling news conference after midterm elections, said he was willing eventually to ease the pressure on North Korea. “I would love to take the sanctions off, but they have to be responsive, too,” Trump said.

Trump played down the delay in Pompeo’s meeting with Kim Yong Chol, a right-hand man of North Korea’s leader, and said it was a scheduling issue.

“We will make it another day. But we are very happy how it is going with North Korea,” Trump said.

“But I will say this, I will say this very simply — We are in no rush, the sanctions are on,” he said.

Trump’s June meeting in Singapore with Kim in the first-ever summit between the two countries that never formally ended the 1950-53 Korean War. Trump has cast his diplomacy with the elusive thirtysomething leader as evidence of his masterful deal-making. Just a year ago, he was threatening “fire and fury” against North Korea.

At the news conference, Trump pointed out that North Korea has not tested further missiles amid the talks.

“We made more progress in that four or five months (since the summit) than they have made in 70 years,” he said, referring to previous US leaders.

“And nobody else could have done what I have done,” he said.

His insistence on being in “no rush” — which he repeated five times in different formulations — may be a response to criticism that North Korea has not moved quickly enough since the summit.

Many North Korea watchers doubt that the regime will ever truly give up nuclear weapons, to which three generations of the Kim dynasty have generously devoted the country’s scarce resources.