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A screenshot of the CNN article on Dec. 5 regarding a North Korean missile base near Yongjo Village. (CNN website)

After the New York Times ran a controversial report claiming that North Korea is deceptively operating a missile base at Sakkanmol and other sites, CNN is now reporting that North Korea is expanding a missile base at Yongjo-dong. This raises the question of why the American media is making an issue of missiles bases as if they represented new activity when they have in fact been on the radar of South Korean and US intelligence organizations for a long time.

On Dec. 5, CNN reported that a new and previously undisclosed facility is being built at a missile base in Yongjo-dong, located in a mountainous region in North Korea’s Ryanggang Province, near the border with China. The language here is reminiscent of the New York Times’ description of the Sakkanmol site as a “secret base.” But the Yongjo-dong base has been the subject of continued surveillance since it was identified as a Rodong missile base by South Korean and US intelligence agencies way back in 1999. The South Korean military refers to this site as “Yongjo Village Base.”

In a July 1999 story by the Washington Post, a Blue House official was quoted as saying that that the North was building a missile base here. Even if this new activity has not been made public before, as CNN reported, it could not have evaded South Korean and US surveillance.

CNN reported that the facility that is being built at a site about 11km from the base at Yongjo Village could conceal North Korea’s new long-range missiles, which are capable of striking the US. According to CNN, five entrances are visible at an underground tunnel capable of storing missiles, which resembles a facility that North Korea built for long-range missiles in 2010. But since mid-range Rodong missiles are deployed at the Yongjo Village base, the nature of this new facility is hard to pin down. Another possibility is that the facility was simply expanded as part of upgrading its Rodong missiles.

The uncertainty of the report is heightened by the fact that the photos that CNN provides as evidence are taken from civilian satellite imagery of the kind used on Google Earth. The movements at the Sakkanmol base reported on by the New York Times were also detected on civilian satellite imagery.

“The resolution of commercial satellite imagery limits the ability to analyze and draw accurate conclusions about whether or not a base was expanded,” said an official in the South Korean military.

The source of CNN’s story was an analysis of satellite imagery by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in the US. This recalls how the New York Times quoted a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in its previous story, illustrating how the viewpoints of certain US think tanks dovetail with those of the media when it comes to the issue of denuclearization.

CNN argues that the activity at the Yongjo Village base shows that the diplomacy and negotiations by the Trump administration since the North Korea-US summit on June 12 have done little to achieve the North’s denuclearization. This echoes the New York Times’s criticism in its story on the Sakkanmol base that North Korea is engaging in deception.

To be sure, North Korea’s activity may be a violation of UN Security Council resolutions that demand that it immediately suspend all activity related to its ballistic missile programs. But considering that North Korea has never promised to abandon or suspend its missile programs, it can’t be criticized for violating its agreement with the US or for impeding their negotiations.

The string of such stories about activity at North Korean missile bases derives from frustration inside the US that the Trump administration’s negotiations with North Korea have not led to meaningful progress on the North’s denuclearization. Those who feel that way are probably not pleased with the idea of Trump holding a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un early next year. This suggests that there will be a fierce debate in the US media leading up to that summit. Shortly after the New York Times ran its story on the Sakkanmol base, Trump dismissed the story and said that nothing unusual is happening.

By Yoo Kang-moon, senior staff writer

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