Satellite imagery of new construction work at an underground facility in North Korea has renewed questions over a rumored nuclear site, though analysts caution against jumping to conclusions.
Newsweek has contacted the Pentagon and North Korean Embassy in China for comment via email.
Why It Matters
The reports come as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un presses ahead with a sweeping nuclear buildup. Analysts estimate that North Korea—officially the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)—may have produced about 50 nuclear warheads and likely has enough fissile material for 90 more, according to estimates by the Federation of American Scientists. The country also continues to expand its missile arsenal, including intercontinental ballistic missiles believed capable of carrying nuclear payloads.
The United Nations-sanctioned program is viewed as a destabilizing force in the region by the U.S. and its South Korean and Japanese allies, which have responded by deepening trilateral security cooperation.
What To Know
Satellite imagery analyzed by North Korea-focused site NK Pro shows new concrete structures at Hagap, an underground facility located about 75 miles northeast of Pyongyang and three miles north of Hyangsan, North Pyongan Province, near the base of the Myohyangsan mountains.
The development brought renewed attention to the site, long speculated to be a node in North Korea’s nuclear program.
Hagap first came under public scrutiny when a classified U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency report was leaked to the press in January 1998, four years before Pyongyang acknowledged its nuclear enrichment program and seven years before its first nuclear test.
Intelligence officials at the time were unable to determine the site’s purpose but speculated it might be used to produce or store nuclear materials.
Separately, a North Korean defector, Kang Myung-do, said the site was linked to the Third Engineer Bureau, the same military unit that built core facilities at Yongbyon, the country’s primary nuclear complex near the Gaphyeondong region, previously known as Hagap, in the Jagang province city of Huicheon.
North Korea has never publicly acknowledged Hagap or its purpose.
What People Are Saying
John Ford, an expert on North Korean industrial capacity and a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told Newsweek: “Without something like a state media visit or clearer satellite imagery signatures, it’s impossible to say what is actually happening.
“Hagap also lacks key signatures that we associate with other DPRK nuclear facilities, like [suspected uranium enrichment facility] Kangson. In this example, we had good signatures, but even that was unconfirmed until Kim visited it last September.”
State media outlet the Korean Central News Agency cited leader Kim Jong Un as saying during an August 18 visit to a navy destroyer: “The security environment around the DPRK is getting more serious day by day and the prevailing situation requires us to make a radical and swift change in the existing military theory and practice and rapid expansion of nuclearization.”
What Happens Next
Kim has pledged repeatedly to grow his nuclear capabilities “exponentially,” framing them as essential to regime survival.
U.S. President Donald Trump met with Kim on three occasions during his first term in bid to get him to abandon his nuclear ambitions.
Trump has said he hopes to hold another round of talks with the North Korean leader, and newly minted South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has made denuclearization a central policy goal of his administration.
Still, some experts argue the goal is no longer realistic, suggesting Washington adopt a strategy of managing its relationship with Pyongyang.
Ankit Panda, a nuclear policy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Newsweek in February, “It’d be better to have some diplomatic overture that could help reduce the risk of nuclear war and bring more stability to Northeast Asia.”
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