Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan warned North Korea on Wednesday that the communist regime will face consequences if it goes ahead with a plan to launch a long-range rocket this month.
"We and our neighbors will continue to persuade North Korea to drop the planned launch to the end, but if the North pushes ahead with the launch, it will have to some degree pay a price," Kim told a live talk show with people available for viewing in real time on the ministry's Web site.
Kim did not elaborate further, but said South Korea, the United States and other regional powers are closely consulting on countermeasures to take if the North launches the long-range rocket.
Kim made the remarks hours after a Seoul government official said that North Korea has assembled all three stages of the rocket on its launch pad, the latest sign that preparations to fire off the rocket are in full swing.
"North Korea is believed to have completed the installation of a long-range rocket on the launch pad" at the Dongchang-ri base in the country's northwest, the official said on condition of anonymity.
The foreign ministry instructed its diplomats overseas to notify foreign governments that North Korea's planned rocket launch is a test of a long-range missile in disguise and a provocative act that violates a U.N. ban, a senior ministry official said earlier in the day.
The instruction is part of South Korea's diplomatic efforts to press North Korea not to carry out its planned launch.
"It is aimed at helping the entire international community raise the same voice against North Korea's provocative act," the foreign ministry official said on the condition of anonymity.
North Korea, which remains under a U.N. embargo for its previous missile activities, said it will launch a long-range rocket between Dec. 10 and 22 to put what it calls a "working satellite" into orbit.
The planned launch would be the North's second launch attempt under young leader Kim Jong-un, following a failed launch in April. Kim took power nearly a year ago following the death of his father Kim Jong-il.
South Korea, the U.S. and other regional powers have condemned the North's planned launch as a veiled test of an intercontinental ballistic missile that violates U.N. resolutions adopted after the North's two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. (Yonhap)