N. Korea May Test-Fire Ballistic Missile Again
By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
North Korea appears to be preparing to test-fire a ballistic missile believed to be capable of reaching the U.S. continent, reports said Tuesday.
South Korea's Ministry of National Defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff neither confirmed nor denied the reports.
The move comes amid growing tension on the Korean Peninsula following a series of statements by the Stalinist state in recent weeks, vowing to take military action against the conservative Lee Myung-bak administration in the South.
Following a Jan. 17 statement pledging an all-out war posture against South Korea, the North threatened Jan. 30 that it would nullify all political and military pacts with the South, including one regarding the Northern Limit Line in the West Sea, a flash point for inter-Korean naval conflicts.
A defense ministry spokesman in Seoul said the alleged North Korean move was construed as the North's traditional saber-rattling tactic to get the upper hand in negotiations over its nuclear weapons program.
According to Japan's Sankei newspaper, the North may be preparing to test-launch a Taepodong-2 missile with a maximum range of 6,700 kilometers that can hit Alaska with a light payload.
A U.S. satellite observed truck movements at a missile-launch facility being constructed in North Korea, and preparations may be completed within two months, the report said.
Seoul's Yonhap News Agency said South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities had detected a train carrying a ``cylindrical object'' believed to be a missile heading toward a missile-launch site in Cheolsan, North Pyeongan Province.
A U.S. military satellite has been closely monitoring whether the train is heading toward a new missile site in Dongchang-ri there. The site could handle a missile larger than those previously fired by the North, South Korean Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee told the National Assembly last November.
Lee estimated that the site, 120 kilometers northwest of Pyongyang, would be capable of launching a bigger missile than the current Taepodong series, or one carrying a satellite.
Pyongyang has a separate site at Musudan-ri on the east coast, which was used to launch a Taepodong-1 missile in 1998 over Japan. A Taepodong-2 missile was also test-launched from the Musudan-ri site in July 2006, which Washington believes to have failed, months before the North conducted a nuclear weapons test.
North Korea is believed to have deployed more than 600 Scud missiles with a range of 320 to 500 kilometers and 200 Rodong missiles with a range of 1,300 kilometers near the inter-Korean border.
The North's short-range missiles pose a threat to South Korea and U.S. troops here, missile experts say, because they could reach South Korean territory within a few minutes.