South Korea's military says it is carefully monitoring North Korean nuclear and missile facilities after the country's spy agency told lawmakers that new activity was detected at a research centre where the North is believed to build long-range missiles targeting the US mainland.
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Defense Ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyun-soo said the US and South Korean militaries are closely coordinating intelligence over the developments at the North's missile research centre in Sanumdong on the outskirts of the capital, Pyongyang, and also at a separate long-range rocket site. She did not elaborate on what the developments were.
A lawmaker who attended a closed-door intelligence briefing told The Associated Press that National Intelligence Service director Suh Hoon said his agency had monitored increased vehicle movement at the Sanumdong facility. Suh said in the briefing Tuesday that vehicles were transporting supplies, but avoided specific answers when lawmakers pressed him on what they were for, the lawmaker said. The lawmaker requested anonymity because the information was sensitive.
Suh also told lawmakers that North Korea is restoring facilities at a rocket launch site in Tongchang-ri that it partially dismantled last year as part of disarmament steps, an assessment supported by private US reports based on satellite imagery. While the NIS believes North Korea has not produced plutonium for nuclear weapons in months, signs of uranium use have been seen at an enrichment facility at North Korea's main nuclear complex in Yongbyon, the lawmaker said. The International Atomic Energy Agency provided a similar estimation in a recent report.
The revelations follow the collapse of talks in Vietnam last week between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump over what the Americans said were excessive North Korean demands for sanctions relief in exchange for a limited offer to partially shutter the Yongbyon site.
It wasn't immediately clear how the findings might affect nuclear negotiations. The United States and North Korea accused each other of causing the breakdown of the talks in Vietnam, but both sides left the door open for future negotiations.
Some analysts said North Korea is apparently trying to convey displeasure over the summit's failure by creating an impression that it could resume missile or rocket tests. That would put pressure on Washington and Seoul, which has acted as a mediator, to make a deal, they said.
Kim said in a New Year's address that he was committed to his high-stakes summitry with Trump, but also warned he may need to pursue a "new way" if the United States continues to insist on unilateral demands and sanctions. After the Vietnam summit collapsed, North Korean diplomat Choe Sun Hui told reporters that Kim "might lose his willingness" to continue nuclear negotiations.
Moon Seong Mook, an analyst for the Seoul-based Korea Research Institute for National Strategy, said it's unlikely that North Korea will resume major missile tests or satellite launches anytime soon because that would risk destroying its fragile negotiations with Washington and could bring even harsher sanctions on its crippled economy.
Australian Associated Press
