ALERT: Is North Korea Suddenly Ramping Up Its Nuclear Program?

On Tuesday, US-based analysts revealed commercial satellite imagery shows construction at North Korea’s nuclear testing. The said imagery was seen for the first time since it was closed in 2018. This added concerns that the country could resume testing major weapons.

The said images were reportedly captured on Friday that shows very early signs of the mountainous area of Punggye-ri. According to Jeffrey Lewis on his Arms Control Wonk website, the images show the construction of a new building and repairs to another structure, weapons.

He wrote on Monday “North Korea uses a substantial amount of wood at the site both for buildings and shoring up tunnels.  These changes have occurred only in the past few days.”

I made a .gif with @DaveSchmerler showing the changes at North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site. We’ve caught the construction very early, which means it’s too early to tell what they’re up to or how long it would take to get the test site back to a state of readiness. pic.twitter.com/Th75GP1NyM

— Dr. Jeffrey Lewis (@ArmsControlWonk) March 7, 2022

“The construction and repair work indicate that North Korea has made some decision about the status of the test site,” the report said.

It was in January when North Korea tested a record number of missiles, including the country’s largest weapon since 2017, and appears to be preparing to launch a spy satellite.

The exhibition — the extent of the destruction was not clear to experts — came a month after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un announced an end to nuclear explosives testing and tests of intermediate-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles. It was part of a diplomatic initiative between Kim and the Trump administration that later fell apart.

On Monday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also said that the United States has failed to respond to “positive measures” from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that were “aimed at promoting dialogue.”

The Washington Post reported Wang’s statement where he said “Where to go next depends largely on what the American side does: will it really take concrete actions to solve the problem, or will it continue to use the [Korean] peninsula issue as a strategic bargaining chip?”

Wang insisted that the United States must respond to North Korea’s  “legitimate security concerns.”

Jeffrey Lewis of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at Middlebury Institute of International Studies said that his team began looking at the aftermath of tests and looking at what was taking shape in North Korea.

While Lewis noted that the activity was very preliminary, he said the fact that it took place at all was significant “One aspect of having so many commercial satellites in orbit is that we often catch construction activities in their very early stages, when it is difficult to conclude what precisely is being built or why,” Lewis said.

“However, this is the first activity we have seen at the site since North Korea dismantled it in May 2018,” he said.

He added, “In the image, we see very early signs of activity at the new site, including construction of a new building, repair of another building and what is possibly some lumber and sawdust.”

“North Korea uses a substantial amount of wood at the site both for buildings and shoring up tunnels. These changes occurred only in the past few days,” he said.

One analyst from South Korea, Cheong Seong-Chang of the Sejong Institute, also said that the rhetoric might be stronger than North Korea’s achievement. “While it may succeed in what it calls ‘a reconnaissance satellite launch,’ it would still likely take a very long time for North Korea to obtain militarily meaningful reconnaissance technology because of powerful international sanctions that restrict its import of high-tech equipment and its poor civilian technology,” Cheong said.

Sources: The Western Journal, NBC News, Reuters, The Guardian, Bloomberg