North Korea Still Expanding Secret Missile Base- Report

While the Donald Trump government is lauding the President’s efforts to convince North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to consider denuclearizing the peninsula, new satellite images suggest North Korea is still not keeping on its words.

Some satellite images obtained exclusively by CNN reveal North Korea has significantly expanded a key long-range missile base located in the mountainous interior of the country. The images show Pyongyang has continued to update its Yeongjeo-dong missile base and another nearby site.

Although the Yeongjeo-dong missile base has long been known to US intelligence agencies and analysts, researchers at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey told CNN that the images show a new unidentified facility being constructed around seven miles away from the older site.

“Satellite images show that the base remains active. Moreover, in the past year North Korea has significantly expanded a nearby facility that appears to be another missile base,” the Middlebury Institute report stated.

Notably, satellite images obtained back in 2017 showed North Korea had built an extremely large underground facility and now the new pictures reveal that this facility was still under construction even after the June Singapore summit between Trump and Kim.

“Construction on the previously unidentified site has continued even after the Singapore Summit” Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, who is among one of the analysts who identified the site, told CNN. “Whatever Kim says about his desire for denuclearization, North Korea continues to produce and deploy nuclear-armed missiles.”

The new report contradicts Trump’s recent claims that there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.

Last week, Trump said that he hoped to hold a second meeting with Kim early next year. He revealed that his government is even considering inviting the North Korean leader to the US in the future.