US media identifies missile engine testing site North Korea agreed to dismantle during summit

Posted on : 2018-06-22 15:55 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Kim Jong-un purportedly promised to shut down Sohae Satellite Launching Ground
The Sohae Satellite Launching Ground
The Sohae Satellite Launching Ground

The US media is reporting that the missile engine test site that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un reportedly promised to shut down during his summit with US President Donald Trump in Singapore on June 12 is the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground in Dongchang Village.

In a June 20 report, CBS quoted US administration officials as saying that the facility in question is the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground, located in Dongchang Village, Cholsan County, North Pyongan Province.

While Trump had previously declared in a post-summit press conference that North Korea was “destroying a major missile engine testing site,” he did not mention specifically which site it was.

Signs of construction for a West Sea satellite launch site were observed during the late 1990s and early 2000s, and construction was completed in 2009. In Apr. 2012, North Korea invited over 80 members of the foreign press to a launch event there for the Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite to mark the 100th anniversary of Kim Il-sung’s birth. The launch of the Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite in Feb. 2016 also took place there.

Since then, North Korea has used the site to test the performance of liquid-propellant engines for use in long-range ballistic missiles. In Mar. 2017, North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that Kim Jong-un had observed a “ground jet test” there. Kim hinted at major progress in ICBM rocket engine development at the time, declaring the date to be “an unforgettable day with development and completion of a new rocket engine” and “a historic day that could well be called a ‘March 18 revolution.’”

Experts believed the test could have been for a rocket engine for the Hwasong-15 ICBM, with a strike range extending as far as Washington, DC. For North Korea’s part, it amounts to a pledge to abandon an important site for improving ICBM performance after the May 24 shutdown of its “northern nuclear test site” at Punggye Village, where six nuclear tests had been conducted in the past.

“The West Sea launch site is a symbolic place in terms of ICBM engine testing,” said Kyungnam University Institute for Far Eastern Studies professor Kim Dong-yub, adding it was “equivalent to Punggye Village being a symbol of North Korea’s nuclear program.”

Bob Carlin, a former North Korea policy advisor for the US State Department, told CBS the dismantlement was significant because the site is one of the largest in North Korea.

But a senior US administration official suggested concrete activities toward the site’s shutdown had not yet been observed.

“The United States will continue to monitor this site closely as we move forward in our negotiations,” the official said.

By Jung E-gil, senior staff writer, and Kim Ji-eun, staff reporter

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]

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