U.S. spy agencies are seeing signs that North Korea is constructing new missiles at a factory that produced the country's first intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States, according to officials familiar with the intelligence.
Newly obtained evidence, including satellite photos taken in recent weeks, indicates that work is underway on at least one and possibly two liquid-fueled ICBMs at a large research facility in Sanumdong, on the outskirts of Pyongyang, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe classified intelligence.
The findings are the latest to show ongoing activity inside North Korea's nuclear and missile facilities at a time when the country's leaders are engaged in arms talks with the United States. The new intelligence does not suggest an expansion of North Korea's capabilities but shows that work on advanced weapons is continuing weeks after President Donald Trump declared in a Twitter posting that Pyongyang was "no longer a Nuclear Threat."
The reports about new missile construction come after recent revelations about a suspected uranium enrichment facility, called Kangson, that North Korea is operating in secret. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged during Senate testimony last week that North Korean factories "continue to produce fissile material" used in making nuclear weapons. He declined to say whether Pyongyang is building new missiles.
[NUCLEAR NORTH KOREA: Maps, data on country’s nuclear program]
During a summit with Trump in June, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed to a vaguely worded pledge to "work toward" the "denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula. But since then, North Korea has made few tangible moves signaling an intention to disarm.
Instead, senior North Korean officials have discussed their intention to deceive Washington about the number of nuclear warheads and missiles they have, as well as the types and numbers of facilities, and to rebuff international inspectors, according to intelligence gathered by U.S. agencies.
The Sanumdong factory has produced two of North Korea's ICBMs, including the powerful Hwasong-15, the first with a proven range that could allow it to strike the U.S. East Coast. The newly obtained evidence points to ongoing work on at least one Hwasong-15 at the Sanumdong plant, according to imagery collected by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in recent weeks.
"We see them going to work, just as before," said one U.S. official, who, like the others, spoke on the condition of anonymity in discussing sensitive intelligence. The exception, the officials said, is the Sohae Satellite Launching Station on North Korea's west coast, where workers can be observed dismantling an engine test stand, honoring a promise made to Trump at the summit.
Many analysts and independent experts, however, see that dismantling as largely symbolic, since North Korea has now successfully launched ICBMs that use the kind of liquid-fueled engines tested at Sohae. Moreover, the test stand could easily be rebuilt.
MISSILE FACILITY ALIVE
Buttressing the intelligence findings, independent missile experts this week also reported observing activity consistent with missile construction at the Sanumdong plant. The daily movement of supply trucks and other vehicles, as captured by commercial satellite photos, shows that the missile facility "is not dead, by any stretch of the imagination," said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. The Monterey, Calif., nonprofit group analyzed commercial photos obtained from the satellite imagery firm Planet.
"It's active. We see shipping containers and vehicles coming and going," Lewis said of the Sanumdong plant. "This is a facility where they build ICBMs and space-launch vehicles."
Lewis' group also published images of a large industrial facility that some U.S. intelligence analysts believe to be the Kangson uranium enrichment plant. The images, first reported by the online publication the Diplomat, depict a football-field-size building surrounded by a high wall, in North Korea's Chollima-guyok district, southwest of the capital. The complex has a single, guarded entrance and features high-rise residential towers apparently used by workers.
Historical satellite photos show that the facility was externally complete by 2003. U.S. intelligence agencies believe that it has been operational for at least a decade. If so, North Korea's stockpile of enriched uranium could be substantially higher than is commonly believed. U.S. intelligence agencies in recent months increased their estimates of the size of North Korea's nuclear arsenal, taking into account enriched uranium from at least one secret enrichment site.
The Kangson facility was first publicly identified in May in a Washington Post article that cited research by nuclear weapons expert David Albright. Some European intelligence officials are not convinced that the Kangson site is used for uranium enrichment. But there is a broad consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies that Kangson is one of at least two secret enrichment plants.
Several U.S. officials and private analysts said the continued activity inside North Korea's weapons complex is not surprising, given that Kim made no public promise at the summit to halt work at the scores of nuclear and missiles facilities scattered around the country.
The North Koreans "never agreed to give up their nuclear program," said Ken Gause, a North Korea expert at the Center for Naval Analysis. And it is foolish to expect that they would do so at the outset of talks, he said.
"Regime survival and perpetuation of Kim family rule" are Kim's guiding principles, he said. "The nuclear program provides them with a deterrent in their mind against regime change by the United States. Giving up the nuclear capability will violate the two fundamental centers of gravity in the North Korean regime."
Pompeo, at the Senate hearing last week, sought to assure lawmakers that the disarmament talks with North Korea remained on track and that the effort to dismantle the country's nuclear arsenal was just getting underway.
In a further sign of detente, generals from the rival Koreas met today at their shared border for talks meant to ease a decades-long military standoff, Seoul officials said. The meeting comes days after North Korea returned the reported remains of U.S. war dead.
The general-level officers were discussing ways to implement April's inter-Korean summit agreements on non-nuclear military issues, but no huge announcement is expected from the talks at the border village of Panmunjom.
During the April 27 summit, the leaders of the Koreas agreed to disarm a jointly controlled area at Panmunjom, work to prevent accidental clashes along their disputed sea boundary and halt all hostile acts. Since then, the Koreas dismantled their front-line propaganda loudspeakers, restored a military hotline and held their first general-level talks since 2007.
This is the second meeting of its kind since the summit. The generals will likely discuss dropping the number of military guards at Panmunjom, withdrawing heavy weapons from the area and pulling some army guard posts away from the Demilitarized Zone.
The Defense Ministry wouldn't discuss any detailed agenda for the talks.
Information for this article was contributed by Ellen Nakashima and Joby Warrick of The Washington Post, and by Hyung-jin Kim of The Associated Press.
A Section on 07/31/2018