North Korea has begun fuelling a rocket for a launch that the West considers a missile test, a Japanese newspaper reported Thursday, citing a source “close to the government” in Pyongyang.
“The launch is coming closer. The possibility is high that the launch date will be set for April 12 or 13,” the source said according to the Tokyo Shimbun in a report from Seoul.
It cited the source as saying that North Korea had begun injecting liquid fuel into the rocket.
The paper also said a diplomatic source had confirmed that North Korea has moved the rocket to a launch pad in Tongchang-ri in the country’s far northwest.
** US Suspends Food Assistance to North Korea
** N.Korea Unveils Details of Satellite
** EXCLUSIVE: Activity seen at North Korea launch site(pic)
** NK to allow foreign experts to observe rocket launch
** Japan threatens to shoot down North Korean rocket
** South Korea warns it may shoot down North Korean rocket
calendar>>March 27. 2012 Juch 101
U.S. Should Not Apply Double Standards to DPRK’s Satellite Launch: FM Spokesman
Pyongyang, March 27 (KCNA) — A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK Tuesday gave the following answer to the question raised by KCNA as regards the U.S. president’s unjust assertion over the DPRK’s planned satellite launch:
The U.S. chief executive called the DPRK’s planned launch of a satellite for development of science and technology for peaceful purposes a provocation threatening international peace and security. This reflects his wrong conception.
The U.S. says that it has no hostility toward the DPRK, but it has not yet departed from the inveterate conception of confrontation. That is why it regards the launch of a satellite for peaceful purposes as a launch of long-range missile.
The DPRK invited foreign experts and journalists to clearly observe its satellite launch so as to prove with transparency that it is part of scientific and technological work for peaceful use of space irrelevant to any military purpose.
The DPRK also invited experts of the U.S. National Aeronautics Space Agency so that they can witness for themselves the peaceful nature of the satellite launch in the DPRK.
The DPRK and the U.S. took much effort to sign an agreement, creating a favorable situation. There will be no reason whatsoever for the DPRK to launch a long-range missile at this time.
It is the behests of General Secretary Kim Jong Il to launch a working satellite to mark the 100th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung and it is a routine work that was planned and has been pushed forward from long ago.
At the DPRK-U.S. high-level talks, the DPRK consistently maintained that a moratorium on long-range missile launch does not include satellite launch for the peaceful purposes. As a result, the DPRK-U.S. agreement dated February 29 specified a moratorium on long-range missile launch, not “launch of long-range missile including satellite launch” or “launch with the use of ballistic missile technology”.
The DPRK will not give up the satellite launch for peaceful purposes, which is a legitimate right of a sovereign state and requirement essential for economic development
The U.S. chief executive said that he has no hostility toward the DPRK. If it was sincere, he should drop the confrontation conception of standing in the way of the DPRK, though belatedly, and make a bold decision to acknowledge that the DPRK also has a right to launch satellites.
Whether the U.S. applies double standards to the DPRK’s satellite launch or not will prove the sincerity of the U.S. chief executive’s remarks.
Posted: 30 March 2012 1303 hrs
SEOUL: North Korea test-fired two short-range missiles off its west coast this week amid an escalation of tension ahead of its planned long-range rocket launch next month.
The North fired what appeared to be two KN-01 ground-to-ship missiles with a range of up to 120 kilometres early Thursday from a missile base near the western port of Nampo, South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper said on Friday.
It also cited an unnamed military official as saying that “the launch is believed to have been executed as a performance test”, and was unrelated to North Korea’s long-range rocket launch planned for April.
North Korea said this month it would fire a rocket to put a satellite into orbit between April 12 and 16 to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of founding president Kim Il-Sung.
According to satellite images taken on Thursday, North Korea has begun work to prepare the launch pad.
Japan’s Tokyo Shimbun, quoting a source “close to the government” in Pyongyang, also reported that the communist country has begun fuelling the rocket.
The North insists it will go ahead with what it calls the peaceful launch of a scientific satellite from its Tongchang-ri site in the far northwest.
The planned rocket launch has raised alarm bells around the world. The United States and its allies suspect the launch is a disguised long-range missile test, and said it would contravene UN sanctions aimed at curbing North Korea’s missile programme.
On Friday, Japan’s defence minister issued an order to shoot down the rocket if it threatens the nation’s territory.
“I issued a destroy order,” Defence Minister Naoki Tanaka told reporters in Tokyo, saying he had received the green light to shoot it down.
The order was issued after Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s cabinet approved it on Friday morning.
South Korea had also said on Monday that it would shoot down the North’s rocket if it strays into the South’s territory.
Seoul is concerned that the first stage of the rocket, scheduled to drop into the Yellow Sea between South Korea and China, may fall onto the South’s territory.
more at afp
Navy ships out radar system ahead of North Korea launch
By Barbara Starr
The U.S. military is sending its most advanced radar system to the Pacific region ahead of North Korea’s expected launch of a long-range missile in mid-April, according to a senior U.S. Navy official.
The Sea-Based X-Band Radar sits atop a floating platform and has the ability to search and track targets. In addition, the system can communicate with potential U.S. interceptor missiles at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, that could shoot down a target missile. But the North Koreans have said they plan to launch their missile in a southerly direction, which would mean it is highly doubtful the intercept capability would be needed or used.
The U.S. military will not officially say the radar is being deployed for the North Korean launch, but one senior U.S. official called the SBX-1 deployment “precautionary.” Both officials declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the information.
The Navy official acknowledged that the SBX-1 set sail from Pearl Harbor on March 23. The platform can operate hundreds of miles from the target area it is scanning, so it is not expected to sail close to North Korea.
Military officials have said they are worried the North Korean missile might be so unreliable that debris could fall on a number of Asian countries rather than into the ocean as the North Koreans have said.
SBX-1 is at best an odd-looking military asset. The platform is 240 feet wide, 390 feet long and 280 feet high from the keel to the top of the radar dome that sits on top of the platform. It is staffed with a crew of 86 military and civilian personnel. In 2009, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered it to sea in advance of a North Korean missile launch at that time.
BEIJING | Mon Apr 9, 2012 10:07pm EDT
(Reuters) – A joke circulating among officials in Beijing pretty much underlines the bind China is in over North Korea’s plans to send a satellite into space.
North Korea’s young ruler Kim Jong-un phones a Chinese leader to tell him about timing of the planned rocket launch. “When will it be?” asks the Chinese leader.
Kim replies: “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four…”
Beijing has received more notice than that – the launch is likely later this week – but a source close to China’s top leadership and a Western diplomat have both said it nevertheless has little influence over Pyongyang and is in no position to block the event.
The United States, which has said the launch will give the unpredictable state an opportunity to test ballistic missile technology, wants Beijing to use its influence to halt the lift-off.
“China has pressured North Korea to abandon (the launch) because it adds new variables and gives the United States an excuse to return to Asia,” the source with ties to the leadership told Reuters, requesting anonymity to avoid repercussions.
“China does not want to see this because Beijing and Shanghai are within range” of North Korean ballistic missiles, he said, referring to China’s political and financial capitals and providing further evidence that Beijing does not have fully warm and friendly ties with its unpredictable neighbor.
Critics however are convinced China, the main provider of food and energy aid to its isolated neighbor, could do more to force North Korea to scrap the launch.
Last month U.S. President Barack Obama urged China to use its influence over North Korea instead of “turning a blind eye”, and warned of tighter sanctions if the reclusive state presses ahead with the launch.
On Monday, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said there were signs that North Korea may also be preparing for a nuclear test, its third.
“We believe in particular that China joins us in its interest in seeing a denuclearized Korean peninsula, and we are continuing to encourage China in particular to act more effectively in that interest” she said.
Nuland told reporters a third North Korean nuclear test “would be equally bad if not worse” than the rocket launch.
It would be in the interests of both China and North Korea at this juncture to say Beijing has little influence over Pyongyang.
But the countries have maintained warm relations despite tensions in recent years. Before his death last year, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il visited China four times between May 2010 and August 2011. His son Kim Jong-un, who is now leader of the autocratic state, is believed to have accompanied him on at least one of this trips.
The rocket that North Korea has readied for launch from a forested valley in its remote northwest will showcase its ability to fire a missile capable of hitting the continental United States.
Pyongyang insists the weather satellite launch will be a milestone to mark the 100th birth anniversary of Kim Jong-un’s grandfather, North Korea’s founder Kim Il-sung, and backing down now would be seen as sign of weakness at home. Nonetheless, Washington and Seoul suspect it is a ballistic missile test.
“They can’t launch the thing without using ballistic missile technology which is precluded by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874,” said Nuland, the U.S. spokeswoman. “So regardless of what they say about it, it’s still a violation.”
But sending rockets skyward to mark momentous events is a tradition shared by the Communist leaders of both China and North Korea. Having launched satellites in 1982 and 1987 to mark the death anniversary of Mao Zedong and in 1992, 1997, 2002 and 2007 to coincide with Communist Party congresses, China is finding it difficult to convince North Korea to back down.
COMING-OUT PARTY
Pyongyang’s move, analysts say, is also aimed at further consolidating the power of Kim Jong-un, believed to be in his late 20s, who became the third member of his family to rule North Korea after his father’s death last December.
“If Kim No. 3 requires a symbol of his authority, that rocket launch might be that symbol tied to the legitimacy of the (ruling) Korean Workers’ Party,” the Western diplomat said.
That authority could be challenged if China were to pressure Pyongyang over the rocket launch at this juncture. And Beijing does not want any instability that could arise from a weakened Kim Jong-un.
But the real issue may China’s willingness to exercise influence rather than its ability to do so.
“The question is not if China has or doesn’t have leverage to pressure Pyongyang. The question is whether it wants to exercise that pressure,” South Korean political commentator Shim Jae Hoon said. “Any sign of displeasure shown by China at this time will not fail to have an impact on Kim Jong-un.”
And in the end, China sees some value in the North Korean regime as a buffer against South Korea-U.S. military alliance.
“The worst case scenario troubling Beijing is the prospect of a democratic, capitalist South Korea reunifying the whole peninsula. China thinks this will bring U.S. military presence close to its border,” Shim said.
China is caught between a rock and a hard place.
“It’s troublesome. North Korea is difficult to control. We have no choice but to help them” by continuing to provide aid, the source with leadership ties said, adding that squeezing Beijing’s food and energy lifeline to Pyongyang could lead to an exodus of North Korean refugees destabilizing China’s northeast.
China’s relationship with North Korea was once characterized to be “as close as lips and teeth” after they fought side-by-side against the United States and South Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War. But the two strayed apart after Beijing flirted with capitalist-style reforms — seen by Pyongyang as a betrayal — and recognized Seoul in 1992.
Deng Xiaoping, China’s late leader, once quipped that dynastic succession is not a Communist tradition, riling Kim Jong-il who was poised to take over from his father, sources familiar with China’s foreign policy said.
China takes great pride in transforming itself into an economic powerhouse from a backwater after just three decades of reform and is growing increasingly impatient with what it sees as an incompetent North Korean leadership which cannot feed its own people, the sources said.
“Our relationship with North Korea is no longer ‘If the lips are gone, the teeth will be cold’,” a second source with leadership ties said, quoting a Chinese idiom. “Nowadays, the teeth keep biting the lips, and it’s hurting.”