North Korea Protecting Nukes Ahead of Trump Summit Talks, Says U.N.
HIDE AND SEEK
North Korea is making efforts to protect its nuclear weapons from U.S. airstrikes ahead of talks about a second summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, according to a U.N. report seen by Reuters. The confidential report put together by U.N. sanctions monitors says they had “found evidence of a consistent trend on the part of the DPRK to disperse its assembly, storage, and testing locations.” Pyongyang is reportedly “using civilian facilities, including airports, for ballistic-missile assembly and testing with the goal of effectively preventing ‘decapitation strikes’ on a smaller number of identified nuclear and missile assembly and manufacturing sites.” The U.S. special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, will meet his North Korean counterpart in Pyongyang on Wednesday to plan for the next Trump/Kim summit—the meeting is likely to take place in Danang, Vietnam, later this month.