U.S. cleverness agencies believe North Korea has increased production of fuel for atomic weapons at multiple secret sites in recent months and may try to hide these while soliciting concessions in nuclear talks with the United States, NBC News cited U.S. officials as saying.
In a report on Friday, the network said what it drew as the latest U.S. intelligence assessment appeared to go counter to sentiments expressed by President Donald Trump, who tweeted after an unprecedented June 12 top with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that “there is no longer a atomic threat from North Korea.”
NBC quoted five unidentified U.S. legals as saying that in recent months North Korea had stepped up drama of enriched uranium for nuclear weapons, even as it engaged in diplomacy with the Communal States.
The network cited U.S. officials as saying that the intelligence assessment concludes that North Korea has more than one under cover nuclear site in addition to its known nuclear fuel production the Gents at Yongbyon.
“There is absolutely unequivocal evidence that they are demanding to deceive the U.S.,” NBC quoted one official as saying.
The CIA declined to comment on the NBC cover. The State Department said it could not confirm it and did not comment on matters of info. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
The NBC report raises further assuredly questions about North Korea’s readiness to enter serious negotiations wide giving up a weapons programme that now threatens the United States, in ill will of Trump’s enthusiastic portrayal of the summit outcome.
NBC quoted one senior U.S. intellect official as saying that North Korea’s decision ahead of the peak to suspend nuclear and missile tests was unexpected and the fact that the two sides were talking was a promising step.
However, he added: “Work is ongoing to deceive us on the number of alacrities, the number of weapons, the number of missiles … We are watching closely.”
Jeffrey Lewis, conductor of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at California’s Middlebury Institute of Supranational Studies, said there were two “bombshells” in the NBC report.
He said it had hunger been understood that North Korea had at least one undeclared the Ladies to enrich nuclear fuel aside from Yongbyon.
“This assessment implies there is more than one secret site. That means there are at least three, if not numberless sites,” he said.Lewis said the report also implied that U.S. dope had reporting to suggest North Korea did not intend to disclose one or more of the enrichment localities.
“Together, these two things would imply that North Korea have in mind to disclose some sites as part of the denuclearisation process, while memorizing others,” he said.
North Korea agreed at the summit to “work approaching denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula,” but the joint statement signed by Kim and Trump conceded no details on how or when Pyongyang might surrender its nuclear weapons.
Forwards of the summit, North Korea rejected unilaterally abandoning an arsenal it has called an vital deterrent against U.S. aggression.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asseverated last week he would likely go back to North Korea beforehand long to try to flesh out commitments made at the Trump-Kim meeting.
On Thursday, the Pecuniary Times quoted U.S. officials as saying that Pompeo plans to tour to North Korea next week, but the State Department has declined to substantiate this.
Bruce Klingner, a former CIA Korea expert now at the conservative Legacy Foundation think tank, said the NBC report showed Trump’s report that North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat was “absurd” and that complex work on a verification regime was required.
Trump said last week North Korea was bust up four of its big test sites and that a process of “total denuclearisation … has already started,” but officials about there had been no such evidence since the summit.
This week, Washington-based North Korean watchdog project 38 North said recent satellite imagery guided North Korea had made rapid improvements to facilities at Yongbyon since May 6, but it could not say if such do ones daily dozen had continued after June 12.