According to the TV company, for the first time the presence of a certain object in the vicinity of the city was established by scientists in 2015, but there was no confirmation of this.
CNN claims that new satellite imagery shows an unknown previously operating nuclear facility in the vicinity of the DPRK capital. CNN published the relevant material on its website on Wednesday, citing data from experts of the Institute of International Studies, operating at Middlebury College in Vermont.
The experts analyzed the satellite photos provided by the American company Planet Labs. They concluded that there was an active facility in a village near Pyongyang that could be linked to the DPRK’s nuclear programme.
CNN quotes experts who drew attention to signs typical of other North Korean nuclear facilities, including the presence of a protected area, underground facilities, as well as facilities designed to accommodate the company’s employees.
“The enterprise is extremely active”, – quotes Professor Jeffrey Lewis of the Institute for International Studies, who pointed out that work at the site did not stop even during negotiations between the DPRK and the United States on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. – “It [the enterprise] is still producing nuclear weapons”.
According to CNN, the presence of a site near Pyongyang was first identified by scientists in 2015. However, to date, they have had no confirmation that the facility is in any way related to the DPRK’s nuclear programme.
In June 2018, the first ever summit of the US and DPRK was held in Singapore, which resulted in the adoption of a joint document. Pyongyang then undertook to denuclearize the Korean peninsula in exchange for security assurances from Washington. The second summit between DPRK and the US was held in Hanoi on February 27-28, 2019. At the summit, U.S. President Donald Trump and DPRK leader Kim Jong-un failed to come to an agreement and did not sign a joint document. On June 30, 2019, Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un held their third meeting in the demilitarized zone on the DPRK-ROK border.
On October 5 last year, representatives of the US and DPRK met in Sweden, but negotiations at the working level ended without results. The head of the DPRK delegation, Kim Myung Gil, then declared the failure of the negotiations and advised the U.S. side to better reflect on its own position. The U.S. State Department did not agree with this assessment and called the meeting constructive.