North Korea appears close to finishing a second launch site for long-range missiles, media reports said on Thursday, underscoring U.S. concerns that Pyongyang's ballistic missile programme is fast becoming a direct threat.
New satellite images show the North has almost completed a 100-foot-tall launch tower at the Tongchang-dong site near the border with China, reports said.
Tim Brown, the globalsecurity.org image analyst who identified the development, told Voice of America that Pyongyang had been developing the site in the northwest of the country for around 10 years.
The secretive state is developing what it calls a Taepodong-2, with an estimated range of 6,700 km (4,160 miles), but testing so far suggests it is still a long way off from producing the complete weapon.
The North's arsenal already includes intermediate-range missiles that can hit targets at up to 3,000 km (1,860 miles) away, officials say. Those missiles could hit all of Japan and put U.S. military bases in Guam at risk.
Brown said the new launch facility was a more advanced operation than North Korea's first site, at Musudan-ri, because it has a rocket engine test stand, missile assembly and test buildings, a launch bunker and an observation tower.
"Little by little, they've been getting closer and closer to having an operational site. We can now say, I think confidently, that the launch tower and the launch pad are basically finished," Brown told VOA.
"And the question is do they have a launch vehicle that's ready to be launched? And we just don't know."
The site is seen as key to Pyongyang's quest to build a missile capable of delivering a nuclear weapon across the Pacific.
Experts say they do not believe the North can miniaturize an atomic weapon to place on a missile, but it is trying to develop such a warhead. It needs more nuclear testing to build one.
North Korea detonated nuclear devices in 2006 and 2009, and conducted long-range missile tests three times -- in 1998, 2006 and 2009. The missiles fizzled out shortly after takeoff.
New satellite images show the North has almost completed a 100-foot-tall launch tower at the Tongchang-dong site near the border with China, reports said.
Tim Brown, the globalsecurity.org image analyst who identified the development, told Voice of America that Pyongyang had been developing the site in the northwest of the country for around 10 years.
The secretive state is developing what it calls a Taepodong-2, with an estimated range of 6,700 km (4,160 miles), but testing so far suggests it is still a long way off from producing the complete weapon.
The North's arsenal already includes intermediate-range missiles that can hit targets at up to 3,000 km (1,860 miles) away, officials say. Those missiles could hit all of Japan and put U.S. military bases in Guam at risk.
Brown said the new launch facility was a more advanced operation than North Korea's first site, at Musudan-ri, because it has a rocket engine test stand, missile assembly and test buildings, a launch bunker and an observation tower.
"Little by little, they've been getting closer and closer to having an operational site. We can now say, I think confidently, that the launch tower and the launch pad are basically finished," Brown told VOA.
"And the question is do they have a launch vehicle that's ready to be launched? And we just don't know."
The site is seen as key to Pyongyang's quest to build a missile capable of delivering a nuclear weapon across the Pacific.
Experts say they do not believe the North can miniaturize an atomic weapon to place on a missile, but it is trying to develop such a warhead. It needs more nuclear testing to build one.
North Korea detonated nuclear devices in 2006 and 2009, and conducted long-range missile tests three times -- in 1998, 2006 and 2009. The missiles fizzled out shortly after takeoff.
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