Over the past year, there have been handshakes, compliments and extravagant photo-ops—in Singapore, in Hanoi and even at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas.
President Trump’s summit diplomacy has raised hopes around the world: Is North Korea now willing to surrender its nuclear arsenal?
Analysts who pore over satellite images of the isolated country paint a different picture: North Korea’s scientists have ramped up production of long-range missiles and the fissile material used in nuclear weapons.
Shipping containers, trucks and crowds of people moving materials and instruments at North Korea’s key weapons facilities like the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center and the Sanum-dong missile production site, suggest North Korea has continued producing fissile material and intercontinental ballistic missiles, according to analysts Jenny Town, a fellow at the Stimson Center, a think tank specialized on security issues, and Jeffrey Lewis, a researcher at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, a research center analyzing the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
Analysts at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency say North Korea’s scientists may have produced 12 nuclear weapons since the first Trump-Kim meeting in Singapore last year. In total, Pyongyang could currently possess between 20 and 60 nuclear bombs, according to estimates by various security analysts.
President Trump has played down evidence gathered by security analysts that North Korea is continuing its nuclear operations, saying in a recent televised interview that Kim “promised he wouldn’t do it.†And Pyongyang has remained silent on the status of its nuclear and missile programs.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/while-trump-and-kim-talk-north-korea-appears-to-expand-its-nuclear-arsenal-11564059627
