The 13 undeclared North Korean missile sites were identified by Beyond Parallel, a program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS.
SEOUL, South Korea — If any country should be worried about Kim Jong Un’s nuclear weapons, it’s South Korea, technically still at war with North Korea and with tens of millions of people in easy range of its arsenal.
But on Tuesday, Seoul reacted with something of a shrug to news that more than a dozen of North Korea’s hidden missile sites had been identified by U. S. researchers using satellite images.
The reason for this, experts said, is that the agreement signed by Kim and President Donald Trump in June was so vague that it did not bind North Korea to do anything at all — let alone to give up the location of its secret bases.
“There is nothing new” here, Kim Eui Keum, spokesman to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, told a briefing Tuesday. North Korea “has never signed any agreement, any negotiation that makes shutting down missile bases mandatory.”
The 13 undeclared North Korean missile operating bases were identified Monday by Beyond Parallel, a program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS. The researchers at the Washington think tank said they believe there are at least another seven they haven’t yet found.
These are not launch sites, but rather mostly mountainous locations where missiles, warheads, launchers and personnel are stationed, ready to be deployed elsewhere in the event of an attack.
Later Monday, U. S. officials told NBC News that the North is continuing development of its weapons program.
The controversy is not over the CSIS report itself but how it has been characterized in the media.
Although the South Korean spokesman said there was “nothing new” in the research, he went on to suggest it was “more detailed” than information obtained by his own government and even Washington.
Many experts say the research is valuable in that it confirms unverified reports that had been long circulated among analysts.
