Satellite photos show that North Korea has started dismantling its nuclear test site ahead of a historic summit between leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, a US monitor reported today. In a move invited by Washington and Seoul, North Korea reported that at the weekend it will “completely” destroy the Punggye-ri test site, in a ceremony scheduled between May 23-25 in front of invited foreign media. But no observers from international atomic monitoring agencies have been invited, raising ceratin anxious over the openness of the process.
Punggye-ri, in the northeast of the country, has been the site of all six of the North’s nuclear tests, the latest and by far the most powerful in September last year, which Pyongyang said was an H-bomb. North Korea pledged to close the testing ground after Kim last month declared the country’s nuclear force complete and said it had no further need for the complex.
The respected 38 North website said Tuesday that satellite images dated May 7 showed “the first definitive proof that dismantlement of the test site was already well underway”. Several key operational buildings as well as smaller already removed and rails connecting the tunnels to their waste piles were removed, the monitoring group reported.
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Excavation of a new tunnel has also been stooped since late March, it added. Images showed activities for the destruction ceremony had also begun, including a newly positioned foundation among the waste piles believed to have been built for the invited journalists. “It is conceivable for a future camera position to record the closure of the West Portal,” the group said.
However no tunnel entrances appear to have been permanently closed and some main buildings are still intact, it added, saying the destruction of those facilities was likely to be carried out in front of the foreign media.
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