North Korea appears to be building new missiles at the same factory that created North Korea’s first intercontinental ballistic missiles that could strike the United States, officials from U.S. spy agencies claim.
According to recent satellite photos, progress is being made on one, potentially two, liquid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missiles at a facility outside Pyongyang, the Washington Post reports.
[General: North Korea still making nuclear bombs]
“We see them going to work, just as before,” a U.S. official told the Post.
Officials also pointed out that there is evidence that the Sohae Satellite Launching Station in North Korea is being dismantled.
The Post report follows a June summit between the U.S. and North Korea, where President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a joint statement agreeing to pursue a “stable peace” on the peninsula.
At a press conference after Kim had left Singapore, Trump said North Korea agreed to give up its nuclear arms. Trump also claimed he was confident that the rogue regime would pursue complete denuclearization and that the process would be underway in the near future.
Since then, Trump has signaled that North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat.
“There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience,” Trump tweeted in June. “North Korea has great potential for the future!”
But last month, it was reported that U.S. intelligence agencies believed the rogue regime had increased its creation of fuel for nuclear weapons at various clandestine sites, prompting U.S. officials to monitor North Korea’s activity.
“There’s no evidence that they are decreasing stockpiles, or that they have stopped their production,” a U.S. official familiar with the intelligence said, per NBC News. “There is absolutely unequivocal evidence that they are trying to deceive the U.S.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed last week that North Korea was starting to take down a missile engine facility used for their nuclear weapons program.
“I know the United States is tracking the disassembly of a missile engine test site,” Pompeo told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “They’re beginning to dismantle that. It has to do with their missile program. It’s a good thing. Steps forward.”
But, Pompeo also admitted that North Korean factories “continue to produce fissile material” used in nuclear weapons. Pompeo refused to publicly address whether he knew if the regime was “making advancements” in their nuclear weapons program, but said that he would be willing to share details in a classified setting.
“We’re engaged in a complex negotiation, with a difficult adversary, and each of the activities that we undertake is not going to be fully apparent to the world the moment it is undertaken,” he said.
