President Trump ’s national security team is closely monitoring North Korea ’s Sohae Satellite Launching Ground, which North Korea leader Kim Jong-un promised to…
President Trump ’s national security team is closely monitoring North Korea ’s Sohae Satellite Launching Ground, which North Korea leader Kim Jong-un promised to dismantle during the Singapore summit, a White House official said Wednesday.
Satellite images of the missile test site have shown no activity suggesting it was being dismantled. But National Security Council officials were not yet raising alarms over the inaction just a week after Mr. Kim made the promise to Mr. Trump in Singapore.
“As the president said at the Singapore summit, Chairman Kim promised that North Korea will destroy a missile engine test stand soon,” said an NSC official.
The official confirmed for the first time that the site identified by Mr. Kim was the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground, a facility in Ch’olsan County, North Pyongan province.
“ North Korea has used this site to test liquid propellant engines for its long range ballistic missiles. The United States will continue to monitor this site closely as we move forward in our negotiations,” said the official.
The focus on the missile site coincided with growing impatience from Washington to Seoul for some tangible progress on the denuclearization deal.
The pledge to destroy the missile engine facility was made in addition to the four-point declaration signed June 12 by Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim. Although unwritten, it was the only specific step agreed upon at the summit for dismantling Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.
“We agreed to that after the agreement was signed. That’s a big thing,” Mr. Trump said at a post-summit press conference in Singapore. “The site will be destroyed very soon.”
The declaration outlined the two leaders’ commitment to denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula in exchange for U.
