N.Korea could test-launch missile at new launch site this year

Tongchang-ri launch path
North Korea could test-launch a missile this year from its second and more sophisticated launch site, in an apparent move to improve its long-range missile capabilities, a US expert said on Tuesday.

South Korean and US officials have monitored the new Tongchang-ri missile base on the North's west coast for more than two years, and satellite images showed early this year that construction of a launch tower at the base was nearly completed.

'What I can tell you is that the facility is pretty close to being ready to use. ... A trial launch at the Tongchang-ri site? I think that's possible that they could do it this year,' Bruce W. Bennett, a senior defence analyst at Rand Corporation, a US think tank, told Yonhap News Agency in an interview in Seoul.

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