06 Mar 2019; DW: North Korea has started restoring part of a long-range rocket launch site it dismantled last year, according to a report published on Wednesday by Washington-based think tank 38 North.
Satellite evidence suggests that work had begun at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station in the run-up to a summit in Vietnam between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump, 38 North said.
"On the launch pad, the rail-mounted transfer building is being reassembled," said the report. "Two support cranes are observed at the building, the walls have been erected and a new roof added. The walls appear to be one segment taller than the previous transfer building and new truss is being installed."
South Korean media reported on Wednesday that lawmakers were briefed by intelligence officials about ongoing developments at the launch site, which was previously used to assemble space-launch vehicles and conduct rocket engine tests.
The site was dismantled last year as part of Kim's pledge to denuclearize at a historic US-North Korea summit in Singapore.
Poor diplomacy
The report comes after the second summit between Trump and Kim failed to achieve progress on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Trump blamed the summit breakdown on Kim for demanding extensive sanctions relief in exchange for further denuclearization. But experts told DW that the talks collapsed because Trump had failed to entrust diplomats with carrying out pre-summit negotiations to secure a deal.
"As a consequence, he got into that meeting and he didn't get what he wanted," Eurasia Group founder Ian Bremmer told DW last week. "They weren't prepped properly, and he had to walk away from the meeting. He has no one to blame but himself."
US Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun, who led pre-summit negotiations efforts, is expected to meet with South Korean and Japanese negotiators on Wednesday.
Earlier this week, US State Secretary Mike Pompeo said he believes Washington will send a delegation to North Korea in the coming weeks. But efforts to restart negotiations could be stalled after Trump's national security adviser Michael Bolton warned of "ramping those sanctions up."
