North has undisclosed missile base: U.S. think tank

North Korea

Published: 08 Feb. 2022, 18:23

North has undisclosed missile base: U.S. think tank

A satellite image of the Hoejung-ni missile operating base in North Korea's Chagang Province shows how tree and bush growth and long shadows in the winter complicate the identification of facilities, which have been labelled by Beyond Parallel. [CSIS]

North Korea harbors an undisclosed missile operations base built specifically for a unit equipped with intermediate-range and potentially intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), a U.S. think tank reported Monday.

Beyond Parallel, a North Korea research division of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), analyzed satellite imagery of the Hoejung-ni missile operations base in Chagang Province, only 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) from the Chinese border in Chagang Province, and cited unnamed sources that said the base could host an ICBM-equipped unit.

The report added that should operational ICBMs not become available in the near term, it is likely that the unit will be equipped with intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs).

The North most recently tested a Hwasong-12 IRBM on Jan. 30 — an act with which the North came “close to breaking its moratorium declaration,” according to South Korean President Moon Jae-in at a National Security Council meeting convened the same day.

Pyongyang has maintained a self-imposed moratorium on testing weapons that could escalate tensions with Washington and Seoul since late 2017, and the country’s leader Kim Jong-un officially declared in April 2018 that the country “doesn’t need any nuclear tests or mid-to-long range missile tests.”

However, the existence of the Hoejung-ni missile operations base — one of 20 suspected missile bases never disclosed by the North — and its nearly 20-year-long period of construction suggests a high level of prior planning that the author of the Beyond Parallel report, Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., views as being linked to the regime’s progress in developing ICBMs and their needs.

Bermudez highlighted signs that the secretive regime took measures at Hoejung-ni consistent with other bases run by its Strategic Rocket Force — the branch of the Korean People’s Army that oversees the North’s nuclear and conventional strategic missiles — to hinder exposure to satellite observation, including digging underground facilities and planting now-matured trees and bushes for camouflage and concealment purposes.

The extensive camouflage, concealment and deception measures are also intended to maximize the survival of the North’s missile units from pre-emptive strikes and wartime destruction, should hostilities break out on the peninsula.

Beyond Parallel’s timeline of the base’s construction noted that vegetation on top of both facilities had matured enough by October 2017 to provide moderate cover.

According to the report, the Hoejung-ni missile base is one of 20 undisclosed missile bases in the country, and has never been the subject of any denuclearization negotiations previously conducted between the United States and North Korea.

Bermudez added that the base was one of several in what he dubs the Strategic Belt, a chain of intermediate range missile bases that extends across the mountainous sections of North Pyongan, Chagang, Ryanggang and the northern section of South Hamgyong provinces and is more than 150 kilometers north of the demilitarized zone (DMZ).

The units deployed in this zone were initially equipped with Nodong missiles, but will likely house the newer Hwasong missiles as they become deployed.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]