North Korea is dismantling a key missile testing site - and it's a big win for Trump
- North Korea has started dismantling rocket launching and testing facilities, and it's a major US victory in what have been fraught and slow-moving talks.
- Kim Jong Un personally promised President Donald Trump these sites would get taken down, so this will go a long way towards building confidence.
- The dismantled sites are key, and not just because Trump and Kim talked about them.
- They represent major friction points that could send the US and North Korea spiraling back towards war.
- However, North Korea still has a very long way to go towards denuclearization.
- Virtually every other area of cooperation with Pyongyang has gone poorly, even insultingly, for the US.
North Korea has started dismantling rocket launching and testing facilities that it agreed to in an off-the-books deal with President Donald Trump, and it's a major US victory in what have been fraught and slow-moving talks.
Following the Singapore Summit between Kim Jong Un and Trump, the two released a joint statement that contained weak and vague language around denuclearization, much to the dismay of North Korea watchers hoping for concrete action.
But in the press conference after the summit, Trump announced two bombshells: The US would halt military drills with South Korea, and that North Korea had agreed to dismantle a missile testing site.
In more than a month since the summit, the US has kept its end of the verbal agreement, but only on Monday did the West get any indication that North Korea was holding its.
Satellite imagery reviewed by 38North shows North Korea dismantling key parts of the Sohae Satellite Launching Station, where Kim Jong Un has presided over the launch of rockets meant to put satellites in orbit in the past.
So far, a rail-based site for transporting the rockets and a vertical engine testing stand have been dismantled, 38 North reports.
In absolute terms, this represents only a tiny fraction of North Korea's nuclear missile infrastructure. But the action there has key components that may give cause for hope.
These sites were vital
North Korea, in past negotiations with the US, have proven extremely lawyerly and adept at finding loopholes in its agreements.
In 2012, when Kim had just taken power, the US under Obama negotiated a freeze on missile testing with North Korea. Later, North Korea announced it would instead launch a rocket intended to carry a satellite into orbit.
Satellite launch vehicles are not missiles. They deliver a satellite into orbit, rather than an explosive payload to a target.
But both satellite launch vehicles and missiles use rocket engines to propel themselves into space, meaning that working on one is much the same as working on the other.
The US, troubled by this obvious betrayal of the spirit of the agreement, then exited the deal.
By removing the rail infrastructure to set up satellite vehicle launches, North Korea may have signaled it won't look to exploit the same loopholes that have wrecked past deals.
At Sohae, where cranes have been spotted tearing down an engine testing stand, the North Koreans have previously worked to develop engines for their intercontinental ballistic missiles.
ICBMs threaten the US homeland in a way that could fray US alliances in Asia and eventually even unseat the US as a dominant power in the region. As Business Insider previously reported, freezing North Korea's ICBM program has been a key focus of the Pentagon for years.
Only a small amount of actual work has taken place in dismantling the sites, but the significance of the sites, and their place in Trump and Kim's budding relationship, gives reason for hope.
Confidence-building
So far North Korea has dragged its feet even on simple tasks, like giving back the remains of US soldiers killed in the Korean War, despite promising immediate action.
Since the Singapore summit, satellite imagery has picked up signs that North Korea may actually have advanced its nuclear and missile programs. When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited North Korea recently, Kim didn't meet him, and instead toured a potato farm.
Kim sent Trump a nice letter in mid-July, but it contained no specifics on the US's declared goal: Denuclearization.
Trump said he negotiated the closing of these facilities with Kim after the joint declaration was signed, but North Korea waited over a month before delivering.
During that time, Trump repeatedly stressed that he believed North Korea would follow through based on his personal read of Kim's personality.
In that way, North Korea has kept its direct promise to Trump and demonstrated, for perhaps the first time, a real willingness to scale back the key parts of its missile system that could bring about a major war with the US.