N Korea 'builds new missile site'

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N Korea 'builds new missile site'

North Korea is close to completing a second launch site for long-range missiles, reports say.
The existence of the site, said to be 30 miles (50km) from the Chinese border, was made public by an analyst using satellite imagery.
Reports say South Korea's defence minister Lee Sang-Hee told a closed-door parliamentary session that the project was about 80% completed.
"We're watching it closely," he was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.
The site's construction does not breach any international agreement.
A US official told CNN that the intelligence community had known about the secret facility for several years and was monitoring it closely.
'More sophisticated'
Joseph Bermudez, a senior analyst at Jane's Intelligence Group, located the Tongch'ang-dong site earlier this year with the help of a private satellite imagery analysis company, Talent-keyhole.com.
It is built on the site of a small village called Pongdong-ni which, he said, was displaced during construction.
It has not yet been used and could take another one to two years to complete, Mr Bermudez said.
However, it is larger, more costly and more sophisticated than the Musudan-ri launch site on North Korea's east coast, Mr Bermudez was quoted by CNN as saying.
"This is a national programme in their desire to expand both their space launch and ballistic missile launch programmes," he said.
BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says the location in itself does not significantly alter the range of targets that North Korea could potentially strike.
But the existence of the base is a clear sign that North Korea's missile programme is active.
Western experts believe that Pyongyang's ultimate goal is to have an inter-continental range system that could potentially deliver a nuclear pay-load, our correspondent adds.
North Korea used Musudan-ri to launch a Taepodong-1 missile in 1998 over Japan. A Taepodong-2 missile was launched from there in 2006, but it failed.
News of the missile site comes as international efforts to urge North Korea to abandon its nuclear programme are at an impasse.
North Korea agreed in February 2007 to give up its nuclear ambitions in return for aid and diplomatic concessions, but the progress of the deal has been far from smooth.
After a long delay, Pyongyang handed over details of its nuclear facilities in June 2008. In return, it expected the US to remove it from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
But the two sides cannot agree on a process to verify the information that North Korea handed over and Pyongyang now appears to be starting to reassemble its main nuclear plant.

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North Korea 'Produced Plutonium for Six Bombs'
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/ht...809190009.html

]CIA Director Michael Hayden on Tuesday reiterated allegations that North Korean and Syria have been cooperatiing in the nuclear field since the late 1990s. “The depth of that relationship was revealed in the spring of last year,” he said.

“North Korea conducted a nuclear test two years ago, and the Intelligence community judges their program produced enough plutonium for at least a half-dozen weapons,” Hayden recalled. It “poses a broad and complex challenge to global arms control.”

Hayden was speaking at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council on Tuesday, explaining how the CIA approached what he described as a network related to the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

Hayden said a nuclear facility in Syria was “similar to the one at Yongbyon in North Korea, but with its outer structure heavily disguised.” “The situation became critical late last summer, when we judged the facility could be nearing operation,” Hayden said. Israel bombed the reactor, at Al-Kibar, on Sept. 6, 2007.

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NKorea preparing to restart nuclear reactor: official

12 hours ago

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5...F1uq-hJFMKCXbg

PANMUNJOM, Korea (AFP) — North Korea has begun work to restart its nuclear reactor because the United States has failed to honour its part of an international disarmament deal, a Pyongyang official said Friday.

"We are making thorough preparations to restore (nuclear facilities)," said foreign ministry official Hyon Hak-Bong.

"You may say we have already started work to restore them to their original status," he told reporters at the border truce village of Panmunjom before the start of talks between the two Koreas on energy aid.

The talks went ahead despite the deadlock in the six-nation nuclear deal and uncertainty over the health of the communist state's leader King Jong-Il.

Kim, 66, failed to appear at a September 9 anniversary parade. South Korean officials later said he underwent brain surgery following a stroke but is recovering well.

Hyon, chief delegate to the talks, rejected the reports about Kim's health as malicious.

"That's sophism by evil people wanting to break up unity between the two Koreas," he said.

The communist North, which tested an atomic weapon in October 2006, began disabling its ageing reactor and other plants at Yongbyon last November as part of the pact agreed with South Korea, the US, Japan, China and Russia.

But it announced last month it had halted work in protest at Washington's refusal to drop it from a terrorism blacklist, as promised under the six-party deal.

Washington says the North must first accept strict outside verification of a nuclear inventory which it handed over in June. Hyon said such demands for what he called "forceful inspections" are not part of the six-party deal.

Similar demands for a "robber-like inspection method" led to war in Iraq, he said in opening remarks at the talks, adding that the US wants "to go anywhere at any time to collect samples and carry out examinations with measuring equipment."

Hyon said the North had "perfectly and flawlessly" completed 90 percent of disablement work including the extraction of 4,740 spent fuel rods.
In return for disablement, the North's negotiating partners promised the impoverished communist state one million tons of heavy fuel oil or equivalent energy assistance.

Nearly half has so far been delivered and Hwang Joon-Kook, the chief South Korean delegate, said the rest would be sent.

"We also want to make sure that the six-party process does not go backward," Hwang said in his own opening remarks.

In Seoul, Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan said North Korea is raising obstacles to completion of the second phase of denuclearisation.
"North Korea understands well that the verification is about the declaration -- to verify whether it is correct and complete," Yu said.
In London the International Institute for Strategic Studies said Thursday the North could put its nuclear programme back on track in less than a year.

Uncertainty over the health of Kim Jong-Il means its stalemate with Washington over its nuclear programme is likely to continue, it added.
"Diplomatic efforts to stem the nuclear proliferation challenges posed by Iran and North Korea are both deadlocked," IISS chief John Chipman said.

"It will take North Korea less than one year to undo the steps that up until August it was taking to disable its declared nuclear facilities."

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South Korean President Lee to visit Russia next week for summit with Medvedev
http://enews.mcot.net/view.php?id=6387

SEOUL, Sept 22 (Yonhap) -- South Korean President Lee Myung-bak is to visit Russia Sept. 28-Oct. 1 for a summit with his counterpart Dmitry Medvedev to discuss closer cooperation in the energy and resources sectors and in the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said Monday.

During their summit slated for Sept. 29 in Moscow, Lee and Medvedev will also discuss concrete measures to promote bilateral cooperation in the aerospace field and a three-way economic development project involving North Korea, Cheong Wa Dae officials said.

Lee's upcoming trip to Russia will cap his visit to all four superpowers surrounding the Korean Peninsula, as he has already visited the U.S., Japan and China.

"Lee will hold intensive talks with Medvedev regarding South Korea's long-term and stable imports of Russian natural gas and joint development of offshore mines in Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula," said a Cheong Wa Dae official.

"The two leaders will also sign about 30 accords on bilateral cooperation in the development of small-sized satellites before issuing a joint statement," the official said.

Lee and Medvedev already met on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit in Japan in early July and agreed broadly on cooperation in the energy and resources sectors and in the denuclearization of North Korea.

At the July summit, they also agreed to push ahead with the two countries' efforts to link the trans-Korean railway, or TKR, with Russia's trans-Siberian railway, known as the TSR.

"At the upcoming Moscow summit, Lee will ask for Medvedev's support for South Korean companies seeking to participate in Russia's massive infrastructure expansion projects ahead of its hosting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vladivostok in 2012," said the Cheong Wa Dae official.

"Expansion in bilateral youth, cultural and sports exchanges will also be on the agenda. Following the summit with Medvedev, Lee will also separately meet with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Russian business leaders and journalists," he said.

On the way home, Lee will stop over in Saint Petersburg, where he will meet with Russian Orthodox Church and municipal leaders and receive an honorary doctorate from Saint Petersburg State University, the alma mater of both Medvedev and Putin.

South Korea and Russia will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral diplomatic relations in 2010.

A total of 33 South Korean business leaders, including Chung Mong-koo of the Hyundai Motor Group, Chey Tae-won of the SK Group and Koo Bon-moo of the LG Group, will accompany Lee on the trip.(Yonhap)

Today In Asia : Last Update : 16:03:03 22 September 2008 (GMT+7:00)

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North Korea building base for bigger missiles: South

Tue Nov 4, 2008 9:04am EST











Related News
South Korea backs U.N. measure to hit North on rights

9:04am EST

SEOUL (Reuters) - A new North Korean missile base being built near its border with China is larger in scale than existing bases and can eventually launch intercontinental missiles, South Korea's defense minister said on Tuesday.

North Korea's missile program is a pressing security concern because the secretive state has an arsenal of 800 ballistic missiles that can strike South Korea and Japan and is working to build a functional missile that can hit U.S. territory.

The new base is 80 percent finished, Minister Lee Sang-hee told parliament.
North Korea has conducted an engine ignition test for a long-range missile at the base in Tongchang-ri about 50 km (30 miles) from the Chinese border, intelligence sources have been quoted as saying by South Korean media.

"Our assessment is that it can launch larger missiles or satellites than is possible at the Taepodong base," Lee said. Taepodong is the name of an east coast missile base and also the North's long-range missile series.

The North launched the Taepodong-2, a multi-stage missile under development with a possible range of 3,500 - 4,300 kms (about 2,200 - 2,700 miles), in July 2006 from the east coast. The missile fizzled and blew up a few seconds into flight.

North Korea, which conducted its first and only nuclear test in October 2006, has produced about 50 kg (110 lb) of plutonium, which experts said would be enough for about eight nuclear bombs.

Despite its long-running program to develop a delivery system, experts doubt the North has mastered the technology to make a nuclear warhead small enough to mount on a missile.

In a show of force timed to tense negotiations on ending its nuclear arms program with the United States, the North fired two short-range missiles in October that the South played down as part of regular military drill.
(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Jon Herskovitz and Bill Tarrant)

http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?...4A318Q20081104