N Korea’s nuclear programme advances, pressuring Trump

Bloomberg

Kim Jong-un told the world this month that North Korea took steps to stop making nuclear weapons in 2018, a shift from his earlier public statements. The evidence shows production has continued, and expanded.
Satellite-imagery analysis and leaked American intelligence suggest North Korea has churned out rockets and warheads as quickly as ever in the year since Kim halted weapons tests, a move that led to his June summit with US President Donald Trump.
The regime probably added several intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear proliferation analysts say, with one arms control group estimating that Kim gained enough fissile material for about six more nuclear bombs, bringing North Korea’s total to more than 20.
“There is no indication that their nuclear and missile programmes have slowed or paused,” said Melissa Hanham, the director of the One Earth Future Foundation’s Datayo Project and an expert in using satellite imagery and other publicly available data to analyse weapons proliferation.
Recent reports have shown that North Korea continued to operate two suspected uranium enrichment facilities — one near its long-established Yongbyon nuclear centre and another location suspected of being a gas centrifuge site. In July, US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo acknowledged in Senate testimony that North Korea was still producing fissile material.
Other reports suggest North Korea bolstered its arsenal in the run-up to the Trump summit and still runs a plant believed to have produced Kim’s first ICBMs capable of reaching the US homeland. They say the regime expanded a factory probably making engines for new, easier-to-hide solid-fuel rockets and enlarged an underground base for long-range missiles.
The reports underline what’s at stake as Trump considers holding a second summit with Kim, which the US president says could come “in the not-too-distant future.” While Trump has credited Kim’s decision to halt weapons tests and dismantle a few testing facilities with preventing a war in the Western Pacific, those moves haven’t prevented North Korea from building new weapons out of sight that could threaten the US.
Skepticism remains about Kim’s denuclearisation pledges, including his assertion in a New Year’s speech that he agreed in 2018 to “neither make and test nuclear weapons any longer, nor use and proliferate them.” Kim ordered the mass production of warheads and ballistic missiles after suspending weapons tests following the launch of an ICBM capable of reaching the US — the last of 40 conducted in a 24-month span.
Analysts say Kim’s strategy appears to be quietly fortifying the arsenal he has while creating the diplomatic climate necessary for North Korea to get sanctions lifted and be tolerated as a nuclear state.