North Korea is dismantling a nuclear facility, Trump’s flimsy agreement has little to do with it

ThinkProgress by D. Parvaz

Despite a totally disastrous round of talks between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his counterparts in Pyongyang a couple of weeks ago (wherein North Korea referred to U.S. demands as “gangster-like” — and not in a cool way), it seems North Korea is dismantling one of its nuclear facilities.

Citing information published by 38 North, the Associated Press reported that the facility — at a satellite launch site at Sohae — is being razed. Here’s what’s being taken down:


“…[A] rocket engine test stand used to develop liquid-fuel engines for ballistic missiles and space-launch vehicles and a rail-mounted processing building where space launch vehicles were assembled before being moved to the launch pad.”

38 North, a site that focuses on North Korean issues, relies heavily on satellite images to determine what Pyongyang is doing with its nuclear facilities. While dismantling the Sohae facility is important, it’s still a “first step:”
[...]
Although President Donald Trump maintains that all progress is due to his brief and inconclusive summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in early June, the fact is, North Korea was already starting to disassemble some facilities before the two men even met to discuss Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

 MAY 6, 2018: Figure 4. New cooling water pump house for the 5 MWe reactors secondary cooling system seems externally complete and river dredging continues in the Kuryong River.
North Korea is improving its nuclear site, weeks after summit with U.S.
President Trump's claims that Pyongyang's denuclearization is cause for celebration appear to have been premature.


Trump has also been making monthly statements about how long its been since North Korea fired a test missile:
[...]
Also, as ThinkProgress reported in late June, while Pyongyang is taking some equipment apart, it is still building and developing other nuclear facilities. At the time, Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association told us that for all the (unverified) dismantling that we’re seeing, North Koreans are “still churning out highly enriched uranium and plutonium that can be used to add to their existing stockpile of nuclear weapons.”

Analysts speaking to the Associated Press point out that Pyongyang is “giving up little” in dismantling the aforementioned facilities, and that without the presence of international inspectors, there’s no way to verify or certify what has been taken apart and how it will affect North Korea’s current arsenal and future capabilities.

Read more
https://thinkprogress.org/north-korea-dismantling-nuclear-facility-trump-9e4f75f6fa78/