Seoul sees increased vehicle movement at N. Korea’s ICBM center

This satellite image shows the launch tower at the Sohae Satellite Launch Facility in Tongchang-ri, North Korea

South Korea’s military said yesterday 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 center where the North is believed to build long-range missiles targeting the U.S. mainland.

Defense Ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyun-soo said the U.S. and South Korean militaries are closely coordinating intelligence over the developments at the North’s missile research center 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 earlier this week 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 U.S. 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 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 Tong-Hyung, Seoul, AP