Photos: Experts Puzzled by Smoke Coming From Building at North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Complex

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Photos: Experts Puzzled by Smoke Coming From Building at North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Complex

Recent satellite photos at Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) primary nuclear facility, show renewed activity in recent weeks, not all of which is connected to ongoing repairs in response to catastrophic floods earlier this year.

According to 38 North, a DPRK-focused website operated by the Washington, DC-based Stimson Center think tank, there’s some new activity at Yongbyon that analysts are struggling to explain. The information has been garnered from photos taken on October 27 by Maxar Technologies satellites.

They also note several specialized railcars dropped off on a siding near the enrichment plant itself, but while cars of the same type have been observed there for months, the analysts have no idea what they’re for.

The photos also show the foundations of a new building under construction in the area of the facility where research and administrative work goes on. The analysts don’t know what the building is for.

As Sputnik reported at the time, the river totally engulfed the extensive earthworks governing water flow around the site, coming up the embankments to the edge of the pump houses that provide the power plants with water before eventually receding.

Pyongyang has repeatedly offered to dismantle the site, which sits about 60 miles north of the capital city, during its denuclearization negotiations with the United States. Yongbyon has been the socialist state’s first and primary nuclear facility since it opened in 1980, building all of the nuclear warheads used in its six nuclear weapons tests since 2006. However, Washington was unwilling to trade dismantling of the site for relief from its crushing economic sanctions against North Korea, so the deal fell apart.

Sourse: sputniknews.com

Photos: Experts Puzzled by Smoke Coming From Building at North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Complex

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