North Korea warned over long-range missile
South Korea has demanded that North Korea abandons any plans to launch a long-range missile, South Korea’s ruling party said today.
North Korea’s apparent move towards testing a long-range ballistic missile, believed to be capable of reaching the US coast, has raised tensions in the region.
There were conflicting reports about whether the rocket the North Koreans were about to fire was fuelled and ready to fire.
The US, Japan, Australia and New Zealand have all warned the Communist state over carrying out any missile testing.
South Korea “explained to North Korea the serious repercussions a missile launch would bring and strongly demanded that test fire plans be scrapped,” ruling Uri Party spokesman Woo Sang-ho said today.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last night in Washington that test-launching the missile, believed to be a Taepodong-2 with a firing range of 9,300 miles, would be a “very serious matter and, indeed, a provocative act.”
A US official in Washington said that US intelligence indicates that North Korea has finished fuelling the missile.
However, Japan said today that it could not confirm that the fuelling was completed.
There have been conflicting expert comments on whether fuelling would mean a launch was imminent – due to the corrosive fuels inside the rocket – or whether Pyongyang could wait up to a month.
The North, which has abided by a self-imposed moratorium on long-range missile tests since 1999, lashed out at Japan today for its own missile purchases.
The Pentagon earlier this month said Tokyo was set to buy ship-bourne missiles and associated equipment from the US to upgrade its missile defence system.
“Japan’s military build-up is a dangerous political ploy that could result in very grave consequences,” the North’s Minju Joson newspaper wrote in a commentary.
South Korea’s government said indications of an imminent launch were inconclusive.
“It’s very difficult to clearly confirm whether North Korea will actually launch a missile or not,” Mr Woo said.
Poor weather conditions at the launch site in North Korea meant the prospects of a launch were unlikely today.
The area was very cloudy, with rain expected in the afternoon and into tomorrow morning, Kim Seung-bae of the South’s Korea Meteorological Administration said.
South Korea has said that it wasn’t certain if the launch would be a missile or a satellite.
After its last long-range missile launch in August 1998, the North had said it was seeking to put a satellite in orbit. Pyongyang is widely expected to make a similar claim if it goes ahead with a test launch now.
North Korea claims it has nuclear weapons, but isn’t believed to have a design that would be small and light enough to go in a missile.
The North has boycotted international nuclear talks since last November, in anger over a US crackdown on its alleged illegal financial activity.
At UN headquarters in New York, US Ambassador John Bolton said he was holding preliminary consultations with Security Council members on possible action if North Korea fires the missile.
