Joby Warrick and Simon Denyer, The Washington Post: As Kim wooed Trump with 'love letters,' he kept building his nuclear capability, intelligence shows
In a secret letter to President Donald Trump in December 2018, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un likened the two leaders' budding friendship to a Hollywood romance. Future meetings with "Your Excellency," Kim wrote to Trump, would be "reminiscent of a scene from a fantasy film." Yet even as he penned the words, Kim was busy creating an illusion of a different kind.
At six of the country's missile bases, trucks hauled rock from underground construction sites as workers dug a maze of new tunnels and bunkers, allowing North Korea to move weapons around like peas in a shell game. Southeast of the capital, meanwhile, new buildings sprouted across an industrial complex that was processing uranium for as many as 15 new bombs, according to current and former U.S. and South Korean officials, as well as a report by a United Nations panel of experts.
The new work reflects a continuation of a pattern observed by analysts since the first summit between Trump and Kim in 2018. While North Korea has refrained from carrying out provocative tests of its most advanced weapons systems, it never stopped working on them, U.S. intelligence officials said. Indeed, new evidence suggests that Kim took advantage of the lull by improving his ability to hide his most powerful weapons and shield them from future attacks.
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Update: North Korea HAS created miniature nukes and has been developing its ballistic missile programme at an ‘intense pace’ despite coronavirus pandemic, UN report warns (Daily Mail)
WNU Editor: There is no arms or peace treaty with North Korea. They could do what they want, and this point was made very clear by others, including this blogger, when talks began with North Korea two years ago. What currently exists is an understanding between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to not raise tensions on the Korean peninsula, and to definitely not conduct nuclear tests. Nothing less and nothing more. This reminds me of the nuclear arms negotiations between Reagan and Gorbachev in the 1980s. The negotiations took years, and the development and production of nuclear weapons only started to wind-down when a treaty was finally signed. The same thing is going to happen with North Korea. My big worry is what will happen if President Trump loses the election next month. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will no longer feel oblige to honour his promises to President Trump, and I do not sense North Korea is a priority for Joe Biden and his team. It would not surprise me if the North Korean leader would then resume inter-continental missile tests and nuclear tests within a year.
