Washington, March 7
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he’d be “very, very disappointed” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un if reports that work is under way to rebuild a long-range rocket site were confirmed.
Speaking to reporters, Trump said “it’s too early to see” if the information about work at the North Korean site is true. Warning he’d be disappointed, he added: “I don’t think I will be, but we’ll see what happens.”
Trump and Kim met last week in Vietnam to negotiate on getting rid of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, but the summit broke up early with no progress.
Researchers say that rebuilding of the facility in question has been under way since the summit and may have started before the Vietnam meeting.
“This facility had been dormant since August 2018, indicating the current activity is deliberate and purposeful,” said researchers at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).Researchers said the activity might be intended to “demonstrate resolve in the face of US rejection” of the North’s request for an easing of sanctions in return for some dismantlement of nuclear weapons infrastructure.
Kim had agreed to shutter the Sohae missile-testing site at a summit with the South’s President Moon Jae-in in Pyongyang, as part of confidence-building measures, and satellite pictures in August had suggested workers were already dismantling an engine test stand at the facility.
But CSIS said building activity is now “evident” at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station, from where Pyongyang launched satellites in 2012 and 2016.
North Korea was later banned by the UN Security Council from carrying out the space launches, as some of its technology was similar to that used for intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs.
The respected Washington-based 38 North project, another independent research website specialising in North Korea, also reported building work at the Sohae facility, based on commercial satellite imagery.
