Rebuilding at North Korea rocket site ‘almost over’

Seoul: North Korea has almost completed rebuilding a long-range rocket site it had promised to close, Seoul lawmakers told reporters on Friday after a closed-door meeting with South Korean intelligence officials.

The claim comes a month after a second summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in February ended without an agreement, deepening a gap between the two on how to achieve ‘complete denuclearisation.’

Shortly after the end of the Hanoi summit, a series of satellite images emerged suggesting increased activity at the North’s Sohae rocket site, triggering international alarm that the nuclear-armed state might be preparing a long-range or space launch.

“The North began rebuilding the centre, which was partly dismantled last July, before the North-US summit in February,” lawmaker Kim Minki said after the closed-door briefing by the National Intlligence Service.

North Korea has been banned by the UN Security Council from carrying out space launches, as some of its technology was similar to that used for intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs.

But earlier this month the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said there was “deliberate and purposeful” activity going on at the Sohae rocket site.