South Korea's Yonhap news agency cited on Tuesday a report by the country’s
National Intelligence Service (NIS) as saying that North Korea "appears to be
putting back a roof and a door (to a Dongchang-ri facility).”
The site, located in North Pyongan Province, is said to be served as the engine
test site and missile launch facility for liquid-fueled intercontinental
ballistic missiles (ICBM).
Last year, Pyongyang announced that the site, which is known by at least two
other names, Tongchang-ri and Sohae, had been fully destructed.
The NIS, which announced the unexpected news during a briefing to the National
Assembly's intelligence committee, further said "the US information is the same
as ours.”
The report by the South’s spy agency confirmed, however, that late last year
Pyongyang halted the operation of its 5-megawatt reactor at its mainstay nuclear
complex in Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, "with no signs of reprocessing
activities there.”
It also said the underground tunnels of North Korea’s nuclear test site in
Punggye-ri had remained shut and unattended since Pyongyang destructed them in
May last year.
Trump and Kim met at a historic summit for the first time in June 2018 in
Singapore, where they agreed to work toward denuclearization of the Korean
Peninsula. Subsequent diplomacy between the two sides, however, made little
progress, mainly because the US refused to lift its crippling sanctions.
So far, Pyongyang has taken several steps toward the goal by suspending missile
and nuclear testing, demolishing at least one nuclear test site, and agreeing to
allow international inspectors into a missile engine test facility.
The US, however, has insisted that sanctions on the North must remain in place
until it completely and irreversibly dismantles its nuclear program.
The second summit between the two leaders was held in the Vietnamese capital,
Hanoi, on February 28 with hopes of reaching an agreement on denuclearization of
the Korean Peninsula and removing the harsh US sanctions but Trump abruptly
walked away from the talks and held a press conference shortly afterward.
During the presser, a downbeat Trump told reporters that "he had to walk away”
from the talks because of North Korea's demands to lift all economic sanctions
against Pyongyang as a prerequisite to denuclearization.
However, a few hours later, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho offered a
completely different breakdown of the summit, telling reporters in a separate
presser that Pyongyang never asked for the removal of all sanctions, but only
the partial removal of them.
On Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he was hopeful about
dispatching a team to North Korea in the coming weeks to resume negotiations on
the North’s nuclear weapons program.
"In spite of lots of hard work that was done by (the) State Department team,
(Department of Defense) team, all the folks at the Department of Energy over the
past weeks working with the North Koreans to try and outline what a real big
deal would look like, we didn't get there,” the US top diplomat said.
Pompeo also noted that the US would continue to work to make progress on
eliminating the purported nuclear threat, both bilaterally and with partners
around the world.
"So I am hopeful, although I have no commitment yet, that we will be back at it,
that I'll have a team in Pyongyang in the next couple weeks continuing to work
to find those places where there is shared interest,” he added.
The collapse of the summit also disappointed US-ally South Korea, which has been
improving relations with the North since Kim and South Korea’s President Moon
Jae-in met in January 2018.
Source:PressTV