SEOUL: North Korea is carrying out rapid improvements to its nuclear research facility, a monitor said on Wednesday, despite declaring a commitment to the denuclearization of the peninsula at the Singapore summit.
The nuclear-armed North’s leader Kim Jong Un promised to “work toward” the goal at a landmark summit in the city-state earlier this month with US President Donald Trump. But the Singapore meeting failed to clearly define denuclearisation or produce a specific timeline towards dismantling the North’s atomic weapons arsenal.
Trump claimed the process would start quickly, saying last week that “It will be a total denuclearisation, which is already taking place.” But recent satellite imagery showed that not only were operations continuing at present at the North’s main Yongbyon nuclear site, it was also carrying out infrastructure works, said the respected 38 North website.
“Commercial satellite imagery from June 21 indicates that improvements to the infrastructure at… Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center is continuing at a rapid pace,” it said. It noted “continued operations” at the North’s uranium enrichment plant and several new installations at the site – including an engineering office and a driveway to a building housing a nuclear reactor. But continued operations at the site “should not be seen as having any relationship with North Korea’s pledge to denuclearise”, it added.
A relevant piece published earlier: US and South Korean officials confirmed today the suspension of scheduled joint military drills, making good on a pledge by President Donald Trump during his summit with North Korea’s leader. Seoul, which has tens of thousands of US troops on its soil to help protect it from its hostile northern neighbor, said the suspension would affect the large-scale Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercises slated for August. “South Korea and the US plan to continue discussions for further measures,” the South’s defense ministry said in a statement, adding that “no decisions have been reached for other ensuing drills.” Some 17,500 US military personnel were due to take part in the Freedom Guardian drills. “We are still coordinating additional actions. No decisions on subsequent war games have been made,” Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said in confirming the suspension. “There is no impact on Pacific exercises outside of the Korean Peninsula,” White said US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton would meet later this week at the Pentagon to discuss the issue. Last week, Trump made the surprise announcement that the US would halt “war games” with its South Korean security ally – without making clear when the freeze would begin. (Published on 19th June 2018)
