North Korea still secretly enriching uranium say US officials

– News about elsewhere covered by Quincy Quarry News with commentary added.

 

Thumbs down on Singapore accords?
An Even Vucci/AP image

North Korea still secretly enriching uranium, say US officials.

 

An NBC News report cites “unequivocal evidence they are trying to deceive the US.”

 

According to NBC, North Korea has increased its production of enriched uranium for nuclear weapons at secret sites in recent months and thus arguably contrary to President Donald Trump’s claims that North Korea was “no longer a nuclear threat.”

 

NBC News variously noted more than a dozen US officials familiar with the intelligence assessments.

 

Regarding Singapore:

— There will be a nominal, ineffectual agreement to dismantle equipment, etc.

— Trump will declare world peace.

— There will be no actual peace treaty.

— Kim will retain missiles, etc. and feel he has the right to use them.

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) June 10, 2018

 

2008 Yongbyon nuclear facility photo
A KYODO/Reuters image

These assessments followed soon after US spy satellite images showed rapid improvements underway at the North Korean nuclear research facility at Yongbyon, developments which will likely make it difficult for President Trump to continue to claim that his summit with Kim Jong-un in Singapore earlier this month was a success.

 

Further, neither of the much touted concessions President Trump claimed Kim had delivered – the destruction of a missile engine testing site and the repatriation of the remains of US soldiers killed in the Korean war – has yet to materialize.

 

“Comrades, I have played the 0range-haired devil.”
An STR/AFP/Getty Images)

Conversely, President  Donald Trump has already made a significant US concession: suspending joint military exercises with South Korea that had been scheduled for later this summer.

 

United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is reported to be planning a trip to Pyongyang in early July to continue negotiations with the North Korean government, in the hope of persuading the regime to make specific commitments on nuclear disarmament.

 

Mine is as big as yours …
File photo via manilalivewire.com

Over the past seven months the North Koreans have conducted no new missile or nuclear tests.

 

But NBC quoted a US official briefed on the latest intelligence as saying that uranium enrichment had been stepped up.

 

“There’s no evidence that they are decreasing stockpiles, or that they have stopped their production,” the official said.

 

It has also long been suspected that the North Koreans have established uranium enrichment facilities at at least one secret site apart from its Yongbyon nuclear research and development complex. 

 

“We must not have a mine shaft gap!”
A Columbia Pictures image

“There are lots of things that we know that North Korea has tried to hide from us for a long time.”

 

Source: North Korea still secretly enriching uranium, say US officials

 

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