NKorea hints at rocket launch as Kim turns 67 (10:11 a.m.)
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea suggested Monday it is preparing a rocket launch, claiming the country has the right to “space development” - a term Pyongyang has used in the past to disguise a long-range missile test as a satellite launch.
Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency made the suggestion on the 67th birthday of leader Kim Jong Il, and accused the United States and other countries of trying to block the country’s “peaceful scientific research” by linking it to a long-range missile test.
“One will come to know later what will be launched” from North Korea, KCNA said, claiming that “hostile forces spread the rumor about” the country’s “preparations for launching a long-distance missile.”
When the North test-fired a long-range missile in 1998, it claimed it put a satellite into orbit.
“It means they’re going to fire a missile as a satellite launch,” said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor at Seoul’s Dongguk University. He called the North’s claim a “preventive” measure because a missile launch could result in punitive steps from the international community.
The KCNA report comes amid growing international pressure on the communist country to back out of apparent plans to carry out a test launch of a missile believed capable of reaching US territory. US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who last week urged North Korea to avoid provocations, was due to arrive in Japan later Monday. North Korea is expected to be a key topic for her visit to the region, which also includes stops in South Korea, China and Indonesia.
Pyongyang has reportedly moved a long-range Taepodong-2 missile, its most advanced, to a launch site on the country’s northeastern coast. South Korean media have said a launch could come late this month.
On Monday, Seoul’s mass-circulation JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said the North had moved all necessary equipment to fire a missile to the Musudan-ni site on its northeast coast and that a launch could be ready earlier than expected. The report cited unnamed government officials.
Analysts say North Korea’s saber-rattling appears to be an attempt to draw President Barack Obama’s attention, to start negotiations where it can extract concessions.
North Korea made a point Monday of denying such a view, saying it “has no need to draw anyone’s attention.”
Washington, Tokyo and Seoul have repeatedly urged the North not to fire a missile. Clinton, before departing for Asia, also urged Pyongyang not to take any provocative actions, saying Washington is willing to normalize ties with it in return for nuclear disarmament.
On Sunday, the North’s No. 2 leader said the country is ready to improve relations with any country that is “friendly toward us” in a possible olive branch to Washington ahead of Clinton’s trip.
North Korea has also been escalating tensions with the South, declaring all peace pacts with Seoul dead in anger over the hard-line stance that pro-US, conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has taken toward it.
South Korean media have speculated that Pyongyang may provoke an armed clash near their disputed sea border - the scene of two deadly skirmishes in 1999 and 2002.
Kim’s birthday comes months after the autocratic leader apparently suffered a stroke in August. His condition appears to have improved, and he met with a Chinese envoy last month - his first known meeting with a foreign dignitary since August. Pyongyang has denied Kim was ever ill.
His health is a focus of intense media attention as he has not anointed any of his three known sons as an heir. Kim’s birthday is one of the North’s biggest national holidays, along with that of his late father and national founder Kim Il Sung who died in 1994. An intense cult of personality flourishes around the autocratic leader. (AP)
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