North Korea ‘restoring’ facilities at rocket site

The Sohae Satellite Launching Station launch pad features what researchers of Beyond Parallel, a CSIS project, describe as showing the partially rebuilt rail-mounted rocket transfer structure in a commercial satellite image taken over Tongchang-ri, North Korea on March 2, 2019 and released March 5, 2019. CSIS/Beyond Parallel/DigitalGlobe 2019 via REUTERS. ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO SALES. NO ARCHIVES. MANDATORY CREDIT. TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

North Korea is restoring facilities at a long-range rocket launch site that it dismantled last year as part of disarmament steps, according to foreign experts and a South Korean lawmaker who was briefed by Seoul’s spy service.

The finding follows a nuclear summit last week between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service provided the assessment about the North’s Tongchang-ri launch site to lawmakers during a private briefing on Tuesday. North Korea didn’t immediately respond in its state media.

An article from 38 North, a website specializing in North Korea studies, cited commercial satellite imagery as indicating that efforts to rebuild some structures at the site started sometime between February 16 and March 2.