North restarts construction at old nuclear test site

North Korea

Published: 08 Mar. 2022, 19:00

North restarts construction at old nuclear test site

Analysis of satellite images of the Punggye-ri nuclear testing site in North Korea's North Hamgyong Province suggests the North has renewed construction work at the location, almost four years after its well-publicized demolition. [ARMS CONTROL WONK]

Satellite images show renewed construction activity at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, almost four years after North Korea demolished most of its facilities at the location before world media in 2018, according to a U.S. think tank on Monday.

The California-based James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies said it analyzed satellite images of North Korea's Punggye-ri nuclear test site in North Hamgyong Province and found construction of new buildings and repairs of existing buildings.

The center told Voice of America (VOA) that changes in the site documented through satellite images taken by Maxa Technology on Feb. 18 and March 4 allowed it to determine that renewed construction activity had taken place.

In particular, a vacant lot of land photographed on Feb. 18 had been filled with construction materials by March 4, suggesting the existence of ongoing work at Punggye-ri.

A comparison of satellite images also showed a new building on the location of a previous structure, as well as a pile of lumber likely earmarked for repairs at the site.

The changes were noted by Jeffrey Lewis, director of the James Martin center, on his blog Arms Control Wonk.

“This is the first activity we have seen at the site since North Korea dismantled it in May 2018,” Lewis wrote in a post detailing the changes at Punggye-ri.

However, Lewis also noted that construction had been caught “very early,” adding that “it's too early to tell what they're up to or how long it would take to get the test site back to a state of readiness.”

The observations made by the James Martin center follow similar activities detected at the Punggye-ri site by former International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) official Oli Hainonen, who told VOA in January that satellite analysis of the test site suggests North Korea is still maintaining facilities at the location.

“They are maintaining the site in such a way that you see trails of the cars, cleaning of snow, and things like that. So, they kind of maintain the buildings in some kind of conditions,” Hainonen said.

North Korea demolished its Punggye-ri nuclear test site in North Hamgyong Province in May 2018 in the presence of reporters from South Korea, China, Russia, Britain and the United States.

38 North, a Pyongyang analysis site run by the Stimson Center, concluded shortly after the demolition that the last three remaining tunnels, as well as a number of buildings at the site, were destroyed, but questioned whether they could one day be rebuilt.

The demolition of the nuclear testing site was seen as a show of North Korea’s sincerity about denuclearization as it planned the first summit between then-U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, which took place in June 2018.

However, North Korea suggested earlier this year in January it could end its self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile testing. An end to the moratorium, which started in 2017, could result in future nuclear tests at the Punggye-ri site, though it remains unknown how quickly the regime could restart testing at the location, or if it harbors other underground nuclear test sites.

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