North Korea is moving ahead with its ballistic missile program at 16 hidden bases that have been identified in new commercial satellite images, a network long known to American intelligence agencies but left undiscussed as President Donald Trump claims to have neutralized the North’s nuclear threat, CNBC reported.
The satellite images suggest that the Pyongyang had been engaged in a great deception: it has offered to dismantle a major launching site, which was a step it began but then halted – while continuing to make improvements at more than a dozen others that would bolster launches of conventional and nuclear warheads.
The existence of the ballistic missile bases, which North Korea has never acknowledged, contradicts Trump’s assertion that his landmark diplomacy is leading to the elimination of a nuclear and missile program that the North had warned could devastate the United States.
“We are in no rush. The sanctions are on. The missiles have stopped. The rockets have stopped. The hostages are home,” Trump said of talks with the North at a news conference on Wednesday, after Republicans lost control of the House.
The secret ballistic missile bases were identified in a detailed study published Monday by the Beyond Parallel program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a major think tank in Washington, CNBC adds.
A State Department spokesman responded to the findings with a written statement suggesting that the government believed the sites must be dismantled: “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.” A spokesman for the C.I.A. declined to comment.
Since the initial meeting between Trump and Kim on June 12 in Singapore, the North has yet to take the first step toward denuclearization: providing the United States with a list of its nuclear sites, weapons, production facilities and missile bases. North Korean officials have told Pompeo that would amount to giving him a “target list,” The New York Times added.
American officials have responded that they already have a detailed target list, one that goes back decades, but want to use the North’s accounting to determine whether it is revealing all the known facilities and moving honestly toward denuclearization.
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