Satellite images show Kim Jong-un is building new North Korean nuclear missile base

North Korea is building a storage for its nuclear missiles after the failure of talks between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump.

The new base is close to Pyongyang’s main airport. Picture: Maxar Technologies

North Korea is building a giant storage and assembly area for its nuclear ballistic missiles after the failure of talks between Kim Jong-un and US President Don­ald Trump, new satellite images suggest.

The base, near Pyongyang’s main airport, includes underground storage areas and buildings tall enough to accommodate the Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile, which has the potenti­al to hit cities on the US mainland with nuclear warheads. According to the analysis by an American think tank, it is likely to be finished late this year or early next year.

“Its configuration and the size indicate that it can be used for the assembly of ballistic missiles from components delivered by rail from nearby factories,” the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies said.

Joseph Bermudez, author of the report, said that the structure, named the Sil-li Ballistic Missile Support Facility, could “accommodate all known and anticipated North Korean ballistic missiles and their launchers for maintenance, storage of ballistic missiles and their transporters, or any combination of these functions”.

The blunt-nosed Hwasong-15 was test-fired in November 2017 and marked the apex of Kim’s progression to nuclear power ­status. Experts question whether the missile’s maximum range of 14,000km could be achieved with an actual warhead, rather than the lighter test dummy, but even the possibility that North Korea could destroy an American city has a profound effect on strategic logic and represents a powerful insurance policy against attack from the US.

In 2018, armed with his new deterrent, Kim embarked on the process of rapprochement and negotiation that led to three meetings with Mr Trump. Before their first summit, in Singapore that June, he agreed to suspend nuclear and ICBM testing, a promise he has kept until now.

Despite talk by Mr Trump of the “love” between them, neither side has given ground on the ­central condition of the other: Mr Trump’s insistence on North Korea­n denuclearisation, and Kim’s demand for the removal of international sanctions.

At a second summit, in Hanoi in February last year, Mr Trump insisted on an “all or nothing” agreement, by which the North Koreans would give up their nuclear arsenal as well as stocks of chemical and biological weapons.

Kim said that the two sides would first have to build trust through a series of lesser agreements. He offered to close his nuclea­r plant at Yongbyon in return­ for the partial removal of sanctions, but Mr Trump refused.

North Korean spokesmen emphasised repeatedly that the end of last year was the deadline for progress in the talks.

Since then the North has not taken any provocative steps — but the discovery of the Sil-li facility­ is a reminder that Kim remains­ nuclear armed and that he is readying his deterrent for use if needed.

Separately, South Korea’s spy agency insisted on Wednesday that there was no truth in the rumours that Kim underwent heart surgery after abruptly disappearing from public view for three weeks last month. Despite specul­ation that he was dead or in a coma, he emerged in apparent good health on Saturday for the opening of a fertiliser factory.

He was said to be managing affairs of state as usual.

The Times