Even though North Korea last year promised to destroy the Sohae Satellite Launching Station, which is part of the country’s nuclear program, part of the rocket test site has recently been restored. The North Korean pledge was made during the first US-North Korea summit last year, but had already been broken when US President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jung-un met for a second time at the recent Hanoi summit that collapsed, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency and two American think tanks. The news indicates that further attempts by the US and other countries to get North Korea to denuclearize are likely to encounter more resistance by Pyongyang than many hoped before the Hanoi summit.
Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton said on Tuesday that the Trump administration was devoted to find out if North Korea is actually ready to give up its “nuclear weapons program and everything associated with it.” Bolton warned that “[i]f they’re not willing to do it, then I think President Trump has been very clear … they’re not going to get relief from the crushing economic sanctions that have been imposed on them and we’ll look at ramping those sanctions up in fact.”
Read more: North Korea rebuilds part of missile site as Bolton warns of more sanctions
