Middlebury team finds North Korea missile site expansion
Researchers at Monterey’s Middlebury Institute for International Studies say North Korea is expanding a key missile site and continued to do so through the Singapore summit between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un.
Satellite images from San Francisco-based Planet Labs were analyzed by the team. The report authored by Dave Schmerler and Jeffrey Lewis show construction of a missile plant they say could be used for the country’s nuclear stockpile, despite talks of “denuclearization.”
Schmerler tells KION he has been following this site over the last year. He was able to pinpoint its location using satellite images, and matching them up with North Korea propaganda photos showing Kim at the “Chemical Material Institute” during its planning stages.
“(They) have continued to expand the Chemical Material Institute where they build composite materials for their ballistic missiles program,” Schmerler, a Research Associate with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at MIIS, said.
He tells KION the propaganda shows a clear plan for the institute’s intentions. “For these types of longer range solid fuel missiles, I think the intended warhead is a nuclear weapon.”
We don’t know how much the White House and U.S. Intel communities knew about this believed weapons expansion, but Schmerler says it was going on before and during the Singapore summit, also after the meeting between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-In.
“As the summits continued and the site was still being built, we decided at some point, last week, we were going to publish our findings,” Schmerler said.
Schmerler says we should now look for clarity from the Trump Administration and government officials about what they new about this weapons material facility, and what was discussed between the countries.
